Cat Lee

Cat Lee is a San Francisco-based oil painter whose work explores identity, memory, and the quiet significance of everyday objects. Inspired by her family’s roots in San Francisco’s Chinatown, she paints fortune cookies, mahjong tiles, takeout boxes, flowers, and familiar places as vessels for cultural memory and personal reflection. Through careful observation, these ordinary subjects become metaphors for possibility, belonging, and the ways we shape our lives.

Lee began painting in 2024 after more than twenty years as an operator, founder, investor, executive coach, and advisor to technology startups. The transition from the fast pace of Silicon Valley to the deliberate practice of painting transformed the way she experiences the world. Today, her work reflects a commitment to presence and the discovery of meaning through sustained looking.

Working primarily in oil, Lee is drawn to subtle shifts in color, light, and form that invite viewers into moments of contemplation. Whether painting a fortune cookie or the fog surrounding Sutro Tower, she seeks to reveal the stories embedded in familiar objects and places.

Lee lives and paints in San Francisco. She approaches painting as a lifelong practice of attention, believing that the ability to truly see is its own kind of fortune.

Instagram: @artbycatlee
Email: cat@artbycatlee.com