Pui Lee: A Black Belt on a mission to break down barriers in learning and aspiration through creativity and unwavering perseverance...

ARTIST PROFILE:

EDUCATION:

MY GROWING PORTFOLIO AS ARTIST includes commissioned workshops/projects for:

PERSONAL STATEMENT:

Inspired by ideas related to the human condition, my educational and arts engagement work is informed by my practice, which uses scale, space and process as a means of making complex ideas more accessible to people from all walks of life. My work explores personal issues and public interaction - and includes winning 5 award-winning Big Draw! events. Passionate about what I do, I strongly believe in the importance of creativity and exercising the mind, allowing each and every individual the opportunity to make that positive contribution to the world. I hope to make a difference in life with my art forms and hope to inspire others along the way too!

Above all, I am passionate, innovative and versatile. Promoting self-expression, my workshops in creating large scale drawings and making masks, for example, explore ideas of identity and self. Other activities include making mini 3D dreamscape/fantasy rooms and installations of other worlds, encouraging children to consider their place within the world, whilst promoting imagination and creative problem-solving skills.

I firmly believe in the importance of drawing and actively get involved in the national Big Draw! drawing festival each year, whether devising exciting social engagement projects or running workshops as part of this.

For example, to coincide with Local Democracy Week, the "I am..." Big Draw! project saw Carlisle residents draw life size self-portraits, which were then joined together to form a very long paper chain, bringing the community together and celebrating individual differences. The "Museum of Curiosities" Big Draw! project in 2013 allowed members of the community to create drawings of weird and wonderful objects for a life-size hand-drawn museum. This site-specific project also embraced new technologies as individuals throughout the UK were invited to submit photographs of interesting objects to be included in a Virtual Collection of Curiosities.

More recently, the "Local Heroes" project at Cumbria's Museum of Military Life as part of the Big Draw! 2014, gave participants the opportunity to draw portraits as a way of celebrating and saying thank you to those individuals who have made a special impact in our lives somehow. The resulting messages and marks of respect were both moving and poignant for all to see.

Other projects allowed the exploration of exhibitions through drawing, photography, creating mini stage-sets and shadow puppets for group performance. Stories were written collaboratively by the children using the "giant dice of destiny" and the "story raffle box", producing exciting and unpredictable stories, such as aliens visiting ''The Antiques Roadshow'! Ideas of identity were explored through character, story-telling and the theatrical, whilst also developing language and communication skills.

Often using the idea of play as a tool for learning and creativity, I like to create a space where individuals have freedom to build, create and invent. I believe that creativity can help people learn important life skills such as problem-solving and decision-making. I also encourage collaboration and interaction with others.

Participants of my workshops have also enjoyed creating recycled time-travelling robots, life-size 3D wig-wams, a field of flowers, mosaic tiles... to name but a few!

For more information, contact Pui at 07970 785 030 / pui_lee@hotmail.com.

OTHER SKILLS: