Michelle Lee

Michelle Lee creates work with concepts that resemble her own intuitions towards the subjects in her life. Her images are considerably feminine, where female protagonists act as primarily manifestations of the self.

Frustrations, conformity, eccentricity, dreams and ideals are concepts Michelle often turns to in the creation of her allegorical narratives. She expresses that emotions and thoughts are fundamental to everyday life, where at times they are all consuming and temporarily blind the conscious state of mind. Like reading a diary out loud, her work imbues the sense of both vulnerability and pride.

Michelle keeps every aspect of her subjects in a highly controlled environment. She rarely works with wide angle lenses, as the designer in her finds it difficult to deal with distortion. She shies away from ambient light, preferring the effect of the flash. In addition to light, Michelle controls her characters in their environment, often building her own sets or miniature dollhouse rooms.

Michelle was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she completed a diploma in Multimedia Design. She began work as an Interactive Designer, which led her to become a producer in a commercial photography studio. In this role she stumbled across her own passion for photography and experimented with an old light box as her main source of light. She then traveled to Melbourne to complete a BA in Photography at RMIT . Her interests lay in fashion photography, portraiture and fine art. Upon graduation in 2009, she was awarded the Kallman Feital’s High Achievement in a Professional Sphere award for outstanding work.