Soyoung Lee is a picture book author and visual artist.
Through picture books, she explores artistic possibilities that reach not only children but also adults, transforming complex emotions such as anxiety and a sense of lack into stories of empathy, comfort, and resilience. She has published picture books in Korea and France, while also expanding her practice through exhibitions and residency programs.

In her personal work, Lee pursues both the Street series, which reflects the anonymity of urban life, and the Two Brothers series, which depicts her two sons. While the fleeting faces of strangers appear fragmented and nameless, the portraits of her children embody the weight of reality and genuine emotions. By juxtaposing these external and internal landscapes, Lee records the present moment. Her practice spans diverse mediums—lithography, monotype, silkscreen, watercolor, and more—embracing the freedom that arises from chance and accidents through spontaneous drawing and automatist techniques.

At the same time, Lee enjoys telling short philosophical stories through text and image, offering delight to children and deeper resonance to adults. She seeks to awaken the “inner child” numbed by daily routines, drawing narratives from darker, blues-like emotions. Solitude, isolation, and exclusion are, for her, alchemized into moments of true freedom. This process reflects the duality of coexistence between light and shadow in children’s literature and illustration, while also mirroring the artist’s own ambivalent emotions—an attempt to move toward balanced thought and psychological equilibrium.