Lily Massee
Lily (b. 1999) is a mixed-media artist based in the Berkshire Hills of Northwestern Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Lily studied Visual Art at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). She went on to receive her bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Fine Art and Social Ecology from Sarah Lawrence College in 2022. Her art explores the tensions between permanence and impermanence in landscape, memory, and the body.
Click here for CV
Artist Statement:
My art explores the tensions between permanence and impermanence in landscape, memory, and the body. I am both fascinated and terrified by the fact that the only constant in life is change—nature materializes and disintegrates, memories are formed, distort, and fade, and bodies grow and decay. I engage with these realities through my artistic process, helping me to accept impermanence.
Photography, a literal capturing of a moment in time, is my attempt at finding permanence in a changing world. I also collect discarded objects, man-made materials, and natural fragments—stones, sticks, and leaves—from people and places I want to hold on to. These artifacts are the building blocks for my work. I want my art to embody the interconnections I find between landscapes, memories, and bodies, while acknowledging their inherent ephemerality. I am most drawn to the processes of image transfer, papermaking, stitching, and collage, wherein I can layer and amalgamate, conjuring the fragility of our temporal reality.
Image transfers, which are at the heart of my practice, are inherently transient. They are simultaneously being revealed and fading away. Making them is an exercise in letting go. You want to rub away enough of the paper so that the image comes through but rub too much or too hard and you may wipe it away entirely. I often transfer my images onto translucent mediums which adds to the variability of the piece. Changes in the environment where a “finished piece” resides continue to reshape the work, moving it away from a particular time and place and tying it directly to the present moment. I want my pieces to disintegrate, corrode, peel, fade, and fall apart. In highlighting the innate fragility and transience of life, my work aims to inspire a deeper presence, gratitude, and care for our world.