GADISSE LEE
Gadisse Lee is a 25-year-old fine art photographer based in North Carolina. She was born and raised in Ethiopia for seven years before coming to the United States. Lee received her BFA in 2022 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has had numerous group exhibitions throughout North Carolina including the For Freedoms Project – Lawn Signs, and has had her work published in Stubborn Magazine, The Danger Issue.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My name is Gadisse Lee. I am a 25 year old photographer based in North Carolina. Before I called North Carolina my home, I was born and raised in Ethiopia for seven years. At the age of 6, I lost my birth mother and brother. A year later, my birth father passed away from tuberculosis. I spent some time taking care of him and my baby sister, and when he became too ill for me to care for him,we moved in with his sister. After my father passed, my sister and I were sent to an orphanage and put up for adoption. About a year later, we were adopted by our new family. The life I’ve lived since then has had a tumultuous impacts on my mental health and identity, which affects me today and influence the work I make.
I’ve found many hobbies and friendships that have helped me process and cope with all I’ve experienced, and photography has been the outlet I found I needed to express everything that I’ve suppressed. In my work, I strive to demonstrate concepts of loneliness, isolation and the displacement of reality. There are moments of tangible emotions expressed through my art. I have often found myself during moments of creativity, that if I am not honest with my emotions, then I am unable to create genuine work. I enjoy working with materials that help my concepts come to life, such as whimsical fabrics that capture motion and give a sense of comfort. I also work with simple backgrounds because they give my self portraits a feeling of loneliness and solitude. This is a technique that I carry on throughout my work.