[Exhibition Opening] Worlds within the World

The Institute for Australian and Asian Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University is proud to present Worlds within the World, an exhibition featuring two outstanding artists of Australian Asian heritage, Rosemary Lee and Casey Chen.

Rosemary Lee is a Sydney-based artist who graduated from the National Art School with a Bachelor of Fine Art. She won the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize in 2025 and has received the Megalo Residency, William Fletcher Grant for Drawing, Clyde & Co Art Award and ADFAS Residency. Her work has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Western Australia and Rockhampton Museum of Art.

Lee explores the intricacies of everyday environments through detailed drawings of urban landscapes and still lifes. Her meticulous attention to colour, tone and perspective transforms commonplace settings into compositions of remarkable visual intensity, drama and depth, revealing unexpected complexity in a constantly changing world. Her artistic influences include anime and minhwa (Korean folk painting), alongside historical and contemporary drawing and painting. A recent trip to Korea inspired a new body of work exploring Joseon Dynasty art and traditional Korean artefacts, reconnecting her with her ancestral roots and childhood memories. These works also bring together her longstanding interest in anime and the compositional influences of Australian artist John Brack.

Casey Chen, born in Sydney, graduated from the National Art School with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in ceramics, and received the Harvey Galleries National Art School Exhibition Award. He won the Muswellbrook Art Prize in 2023 and was a finalist in the 2025 Wynne Prize and Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. In 2024, he undertook a residency at Galerie Lefebvre & Fils in Paris.

Chen’s ceramic practice references historical illustrations from an eclectic mix of folklore, mythology and pop culture. His work blends childhood nostalgia with long-standing East Asian ceramic traditions. He incorporates imagery from Chinese literary classics such as The Water Margin and Investiture of the Gods into an irreverent visual language alongside contemporary popular culture. These narratives are painted onto hand-thrown vessels and prefabricated tiles, paying homage to the rich and enduring history of porcelain craft while subverting the expectations of the audience about the conventions of the medium.

In Worlds within the World, Lee and Chen reveal worlds hidden within the familiar and the contemporary in the past, drawing on cultural memories and artistic traditions as living sources of inspiration. Through Lee’s intricate drawings and Chen’s intriguing ceramics, familiar environments, historical artefacts and traditional forms are transformed into new visual worlds. Both artists possess an exceptional ability to look beyond the surface, uncovering unexpected connections and imaginative possibilities. Their works make us look again and discover the many worlds of tradition, culture and imagination that exist within the one we inhabit.