Charles H. Lee (b. 1983) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator based in San Francisco. Working in photography, assemblage, painting, sculpture, and installation, he builds from family archives and salvaged material to ask who holds land, who is remembered on it, and what gets kept or discarded. He holds a BA from Bowie State University and an MFA from California College of the Arts, and has taught at both CCA and the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Lee was named a 2026 SFMOMA SECA Art Award finalist. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and has been presented at Paris Photo. Recent exhibitions include TLC at the Griffin Museum of Photography and The Black West in Color at the List Gallery at Swarthmore College, following solo presentations at SF Camerawork, reviewed in the British Journal of Photography, and the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. He has held residencies at RAIR Philly and SPACES, and begins a Creative Residency at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House in 2027. In the Shadows of the West, which he curated, opens at SOMArts in January.

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