Biography
Philadelphia-born artist Cherie Lee (b. 1968) is internationally recognized for her mastery of intricately carved, genuine ostrich eggshells. Utilizing high-speed rotary equipment, she applies Renaissance tenets of sculpture and low-relief techniques to craft works that impart both narrative and literal depth on their delicate 1/8-inch-thick surfaces. This choice of material highlights her enduring fascination with themes of vulnerability and resilience.
Lee’s practice is defined by an exploration of positive and negative space, the interplay of strength and fragility, and the balance between emptiness and fullness. Through minimalist subtractive sculpture, she examines how much can be removed while preserving the integrity of form, serving as a powerful metaphor for transformation and endurance.
Her work has been showcased in venues such as Woodmere Art Museum, Wayne Arts Center and the National Sculpture Society. Lee’s accolades include the Egg Art International’s Best of 2024 Award and the Boynes Artist Award for Excellence. Her creations are held in distinguished collections, including the White House’s permanent art collection, Bryn Mawr Rehabilitation Hospital, and numerous private collections worldwide. Literary contributions include "Critical Moss”, Awakened Voices Magazine and Dwell Time Press.
In 2024, Lee received a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as well as grants from Camden Fireworks and the Peters Valley School of Craft on behalf of The New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund of the Princeton Area Community Foundation. She has participated in residencies including the RUC Rural Residency for Contemporary Art in Brescia, Italy (2025 cohort); Bryn Du Mansion (2024); Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat (2020, 2021, 2023); and Bethany Arts Community (2020, 2022), where she also served as a Fellow in both 2021 and 2022.
Recently expanding her focus, Lee’s current project, “RANT and RAVE™”, a collaboration with the New Jersey Children’s Alliance, is a co-created arts exhibition addressing childhood trauma. This newest artwork challenges societal perceptions, spotlighting marginalized experiences and demonstrating the power of creativity to inspire healing and solution-based conversations.
The Deeper Story
Having grown up suburban-poor, her earliest materials were found objects in nature and readily available household items, predominantly paper.
These early works resulted most often in two distinct styles: elaborate dimensional paper sculptures that are white-on-white plays of light and shadow, or detailed, paper-cuts and scherenschnitte.
Both styles notable for what they lack, or what's been taken away; a concept she hopes might foster a more solid appreciation for what is there.
Shortly after recognizing the humble chicken egg as the ideal 4-dimensional 'canvas' by dint of accident and ignorance, she stumbled upon where those styles merged. This intersection created a new path, and eggshells became her primary medium of choice, with the common household Dremel® as her sole, yet very limiting, tool.
With the advent of the internet, her practice expanded and deepened beyond her own expectations, and soon emu, rhea and ostrich eggs became the predominate objective. Immediately upon learning of dental drills as a carving tool, she saw the direction she wanted to go, and never quite lost sight of it.
What promised to be an auspicious career-start instead signaled her career's end. Even as one of her earliest pieces was being accepted to the United States White House Permanent Collection, a tragic death close-at-hand was triggering an emotional breakdown in the family, ultimately resulting in the artist sustaining a debilitating injury, further contributing to the household's dissolution. Thus evolved a permanently disabled single mother of two young boys, for whom 25 years would pass before she ever laid hands or eyes on that recently discovered dental drill.
The creative suspension was broken by the next significant life-disruption, marked by a tumultuous upending of hearth and home. This forced re-formation spurred the full-fledged return to her craft, with a compelling intent to master her medium. By October of 2018, she obtained her long-desired dental drill, and set to work with diligence. All works shown on this website* have been created since that critical date. She's only now recognizing her under-estimation of the medium, as well as her own skills, and is looking forward to seeing just how far she can push them.
Her interest and investigations into disability, poverty and homelessness come from a personal place, and her current path explores how much can be taken away from something, be it natural, man-made or conceptual, without it losing it's integrity and breaking.
“However,” she cautions, “if the strength of an eggshell allows me to push it to it's furthest limits,
it's fragility reminds me not to.”
Eggshell sculptor Cherie Lee is looking at what falls between the cracks,
and finding beauty and courage there.
If you've read this far and you want the real, down-and-dirty bio,
currently under production, check here
*with the exception of "additional hobbies and interests" & "additive sculpture" on the Engraving/Alternate Works page
