CAROLINE RICCA LEE
Bio
Descended from a Japanese family who immigrated to Brazil and a Chinese family from Macau, the artist interrogates the narratives carried by diasporic bodies. Through a transdisciplinary practice combining sculpture, ceramics, textile, resin, video and writing, they explore unofficial memories — those of personal stories, family photographs, ancestral objects and embodied cartographies. Invoking speculative fiction as a critical tool, the artist creates rifts in dominant narratives, questioning the ways in which marginalised identities inhabit and transmit their history. Marked by the aesthetics of chaos, fragmentation and improvisation characteristic of São Paulo, this practice reflects the multiplicity of ways of existing and becoming inherent to multicultural and diasporic identities.
Born in São Paulo, Caroline Ricca Lee (lives and works in São Paulo) is a Brazilian artist of Japanese and Chinese descent. In 2020–2021, they followed the Research Programme in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo. They are currently a resident at the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. They were also a resident at La Becque (CH) and IASPIS (Sweden) in 2025, and at Pivô Arte e Pesquisa (São Paulo) and Fondazione Elle (Sicily) in 2024. They are the recipient of the ISOLA SICILIA prize in 2023, and were nominated for the Institut PIPA in 2025 and the Northern Trust Purchase Prize in 2026.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include: SALTS, Basel (2025); Galeria Quadra, São Paulo (2025); Sesc Paulista, São Paulo (2025); Tube Culture Hall, Milan (2024); Galerie Verve, São Paulo (2024); Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Brazil (2022); Cultural Center of São Paulo (2021); Centro Cultural São Paulo (2020). They are preparing their first solo exhibition in Europe at sissi club, Marseille, in August 2026.
Their works are held in the collections of Soho House Tokyo (JP), Renato Alpegiani, Turin (IT), Fondazione Oelle Collection, Sicily (IT) and Denver Art Museum (US). They are represented by Verve Galeria, São Paulo (BR)
À venir: août 2026