Aimee Lee is the leading hanji researcher and practitioner in North America. The daughter of Korean immigrants, Lee embodies in her work a commitment to sustaining traditional techniques while using these practices to create contemporary pieces and installations. 

On a mission to increase the recognition of Korean papermaking in the global history of papercraft, Lee received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2008 to study hanji techniques in South Korea alongside master artist Jang Seong Woo and his father, Jang Yong Hoon. While apprenticing at their family’s paper mill, she learned the process of transforming fibers from wild Korean mulberry trees into handmade paper and twine that can be used for weaving and basketry.

In 2010, Lee oversaw the creation of the first U.S. hanji studio in Cleveland, Ohio at the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory. Using her expert knowledge of papermaking techniques, she continues to explore sustainable artmaking using native and invasive Ohio plants. Lee shares her art form through teaching and lecturing at museums and universities, and through workshops at noted craft schools like Haystack, Penland, and the John C. Campbell Folk School.  Her work has been displayed nationally and internationally, including in 2019 at the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery exhibition Thread Count: The Intersection of Mathematics and Fiber Arts. Aimee Lee is the author of Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking.