MELBOURNE.- Craft Victoria announced the appointment of experienced First Nations artist Jenna Lee to the Board as a Craft Industry Professional non-Executive Director.

Ms Lee is a Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri woman who also has Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. Her interdisciplinary art practice works across painting, projection, found object and sculpture, with a reoccurring use of paper, the book, language, and text.

Craft Victoria Chair, Katrina Raymond, said Ms Lee brings a unique industry professional maker perspective which will be invaluable in supporting strategic planning and in helping the organisation to assist our Members in building professional and sustainable craft careers.

“Jenna’s career achievements to date have been inspirational. Her early commissioned design work for major organisations have helped in preserving, exploring and expressing Aboriginal cultural practices.

“In recent years she has been the recipient of numerous important national Awards with work that explores the transformation of the printed word through the ritualistic acts of destruction and reconstruction, seeking to translate the page into a new tangible language.

“We look forward to the role Jenna will play in securing Craft Victoria’s future success,” Ms Raymond said.

Craft Victoria’s core mission is to support and promote professional craft makers in their endeavours to build professional and sustainable careers. The two Craft Industry Professionals on the Craft Board have a unique role in representing the interests of Craft’s diverse maker membership and ensuring they have a voice.

Ms Lee said she’s excited to be able to contribute to the sector as a Craft Industry Professional non-Executive Director and further her passion and development within this creative field.




“In the past few years, as my career has evolved, I have found myself speaking on and advocating for the power and importance of craft - not only as a framework for my own practice - but as a transformative material-based process and accessible collecting economy which supports individual makers and craftspeople,” said Ms Lee.

Lee holds a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design as well as a deferred Bachelor of Fine Art from the Queensland College of Art Griffith University and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Queensland.

In 2020 Lee was the recipient of the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), a finalist Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, National Works on Paper Prize and as well as The Libris Artist Book Prize and 15 Artist Prize.

In 2019 Lee was the recipient of the Australia Council’s Young and Emerging Dreaming Award, presented at the National Indigenous Arts Awards as well as one of 10 finalists in the prestigious John Fries Award for emerging and early career Australian and New Zealander artists.

In 2018 Jenna was a finalist in the 35th NATSIAA, a finalist in the 2018 Blacktown Art Prize, as well as winning the tertiary category in the Libris Artist Book Prize for her the loose-leaf artist book ‘A Plant in the Wrong Place’.

Jenna Lee is a descendent of the Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri people with mixed Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Filipino) and Anglo Australia ancestry. With a passionate obsession with the materiality and uses of paper Lee works across sculpture, installation, body adornment as well as exploring language and text in moving image, photography and projection

Strongly influenced by material, method and process Lee uses art to explore her overlapping identities and tangible transformation of language, incorporating her father’s teachings of culture and mother’s teachings of papercraft.

Represented by MARS Gallery in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) Lee has had sell out shows and has exhibited nationally and internationally in major institutions.

Lee has received national acclaim for her work as the recipient of the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), the Australia Council’s Young and Emerging Dreaming Award, presented at the National Indigenous Arts Awards and Libris Artist Book Prize. She has been a finalist in the prestigious John Fries Award for emerging and early career artists, National Works on Paper Prize, Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Blacktown Art Prize, 15 Artist Prize and the KWM Contemporary First Nations Art Award.

Formally trained as a graphic designer, Lee has a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design and a Post Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies.