Jennifer Tee

Jennifer Tee is known for her experimental, interdisciplinary practice, unencumbered by delineations in form. Working in an array of mediums such as tulip petal collages, ceramic domes, knitted floor pieces, and pineapple cloth tapestries, all of Tee’s works point toward the vulnerable relationship between nature and culture, language and perception, beauty and destruction, while exploring how all of these ideas play into questions of land rights, nationality, belonging, and ecology. Her quixotic environments can often be activated, engendering their own rituals. 

Tee is widely celebrated for her Tampan Tulips,a series of collages made from pressed tulip petals, with motifs taken from the Tampan, square-shaped woven cloths that were exchanged during important rites of passage. Tampan are found in the Lampung region of southern Sumatra, a crucial trade route since antiquity, a crossroads of cultures and traditions. Predominantly featuring ships with a mast that often branches out into a tree of life, the tampan is evocative of human souls continuing onto new lives. The reference to migration is of particular interest to Tee, as her father migrated with his parents and sister to the Netherlands from Indonesia on a ship in the 1950s. The geometric and mirrored patterns visualize the orders of society as well as the universe and are seen as portals leading from the material to the spiritual world.

Jennifer Tee (1973) lives and works in Amsterdam, NL. She was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, NL, and ISCP, New York, US. Tee was awarded the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts, 2020. Recent solo exhibitions include: Still Shifting,  Mother Field, Secession, AT; DRIFT, multilingual performance choreography, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL; Ether Plane ~ Material Plane, ISCP, New York, US; Let it Come Down, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, DE;  Let it Come Down, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK; Structures of Recollections and Perseverance, Kunstraum, London, UK; Tulip Palepai, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, NL; The Soul in Limbo, 6th Cobra Art Prize, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, NL; Occult Geometry, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK; Practical Magic, Project Art Centre Gallery Dublin, IR; Local Myths, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK; and Nameless Swirls, an Unfolding in Presence, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL. Selection of group shows and biennials: The 13th Liverpool Biennale, Lahore Biennale 03, the 33rd Istanbul Biennial, the São Paulo Bienale, São Paulo, BR, Retour sur Mulholland Drive, La Panacée, Montpelier, FR, What people do for money, Manifesta 11, Zurich CH, The Peacock, Grazer Kunstverein, AT, Six Possibilities for a Sculpture, La Loge, Brussels BE, Beyond Imagination, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam NL, Secret Societies, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt DE, Nether Land, Dutch Culture Center, Shanghai World Expo; Sao Paulo Biennial.