Jacqueline Rush Lee was born in Castlereagh, attended Dundonald Girls’ High School, and grew up in Balloo, Killinchy. Now she lives in what she describes as “another green isle, far, far away”. Having taken up residence on the tropical shores of Hawaii during the 1990s, the artist and sculptor says elements of her Northern Irish background and heritage still find a way of popping up in her unusual work.
“If you had asked me when I was younger where I’d end up, I never would have thought it would be Hawaii,” she says, speaking from her home in Oahu. “My path to making art has been unconventional.” Jacqueline works primarily with repurposed books to construct sculptures by stacking, sewing and shaping pages in unusual forms.
The 59-year-old says she always wanted to travel and was fascinated by the US, particularly the Grand Canyon. “I then ended up travelling to Bermuda, where I met my husband and we got married there,” she explained. “He’s from New York and his family on his father’s side were from Hawaii, so that’s how we ended up here.
” Jacqueline defines herself as a mixed-media artist, but her work has always focused on books. Her latest solo exhibition ‘Whorl’ ran from April 5 to May 31 in Hilo, Hawaii. Turning books into artwork is a complex, lengthy process.
“All of the book sculptures in Whorl have been transformed by nature,” she explains. “I create the initial book structures, place them in old tree wells or book branches, and.