Ten Lee Talks Art, Dance, and His New Represent Clothing Collection

A few days ago, musician and dancer Ten Lee — known for his work in K-pop groups such as NCT and SuperM, and the Chinese group WayV — shared a video of himself freediving in a deep pool. As Billie Eilish croons the opening to “idontwannabeyouanymore,” he launches into a somersault before swan diving easily onto his back, legs fluttering, arms outstretched, a mermaid embracing the open water.

The reason for the dive is a bit of a secret, he tells Teen Vogue, but not one necessarily related to forthcoming music with the groups he’s in. Rather, it’s one way he’s following his own artistic instincts. If he looks like he’s dancing underwater, that’s because he is, bringing to life a picture of a dance move that previously existed only in his head. “I have all these thoughts in my brain right now,” he says, “but I had to make it real.”

Though he floats seamlessly into different combinations of performers onstage, whether as part of the sensual WayV or the chaotic NCT or the maximalist SuperM, Ten has a fluidity and spirit all his own — especially in dance, where he thrives. Born Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul in Bangkok, Thailand, he joined SM Entertainment in 2013, debuting as part of NCT U in 2016. A turning point came in 2017, when he released his first solo single “Dream in a Dream,” a lovely, imaginative ballad that melds traditional East Asian instrumentals with woozy ambient pop, and has mesmerizing choreography to match. It was the first time he talked to the choreographers he worked with and shared his ideas of what he wanted to try. “I realized why all the hyungs sometimes like doing their own stuff,” he says. “It's because you’re putting your ideas in your own work.”

Now, he’s on the cusp of another turning point: earlier this month, he launched a clothing collection with Represent that features all of his original designs. Longtime Ten fans will know he’s into visual art, sharing regal sketches of his cats Leon and Louis and emotive, detailed doodles on his Instagram. (Fun fact: he toyed with the idea of designing cat clothes, but was concerned about how cats would clean themselves.) The new collection shows off his skill, of course, but it’s also a representation of his creative ethos, and who he wants to be as a person.

Titled “What is ??? THE ANSWERS,” the designs are explosive and bright, with symbols and metaphors galore. He draws various eyes, entranced by the way they show happiness, embarrassment, fear, the things people try to hide. In one design, he uses a cross, which has a double meaning: it’s the Chinese character for the number “10” and also a plus sign, representing the growth and potential he sees in himself.

Ten had long wanted to create a clothing brand, and when Represent approached him, he saw an opportunity to try something of his own. As a kid in Bangkok, he’d taken art lessons at the behest of his mom, who believed that studying art would help boost his IQ and improve his education as a whole. He didn’t really like it at the time, until he took the Cambridge IGCSE exam and tested highly in, you guessed it, art. “I was like, ‘Okay, I like art,’” Ten laughs. “Then I started drawing and trying to develop my own style.” Now, he turns to drawing when he’s feeling “negative energy,” like “when you're down or when you feel sad or when you feel like you're not good enough for something.” Drawing is a source of solace, and it also helps him focus and find clarity on more existential matters.

On Instagram, he wrote of the collection, “What inspires me to create these art pieces is to remind myself that there are no actual answers in what we do. I feel like we are creating all the rules and pressure ourselves with the word ‘standards.’ Who defines the standards of what is acceptable or not + what is right or not + what is enough or not??? The boundaries we draw might limit us from creating something we never knew were capable of.”

When he expands upon that Instagram artist statement, it’s with an interesting visual. “People try to make lines on you,” he says. It calls to mind something like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, a representation of perfect proportions and clean, graphed segments. An idealized image that hardly ever exists.

“I was thinking about my own stuff, the things I have to do to get what I want, like my goals. And, what people said to me, maybe about [my] appearance or about the skills that I had, or my personality, and they told me to change this, do this. I realized that they're just making their own lines on me. So what is the right answer for me? What do I have to do to really be the person I want to be? But then I realized that there's no right or wrong.”

He connects his drawing to his dancing in one word: freedom. Both allow him to lose himself in the moment of creating something real and personal. But in art, it doesn’t matter so much about finding the right answer, or unifying perfectly with other people the way a highly choreographed dance requires.

“Art is more of an individual pleasure,” he says. “If Mark [Lee, his bandmate] is next to me, and I say like, ‘Hey Mark, do you think that clothing is nice?’ He might say no, but for me it was, ‘Wow, that clothing looks so beautiful.’”

Ten might be homed in on individual artistic expression at the moment, but that doesn't mean that's his sole focus. He also yearns for the day SuperM can reunite after members Baekhyun and Taemin return from their military service. “I will fight for that," he says. "We had so much fun touring and then working with all the hyungs. I hope there's a new project for SuperM to work on once everyone is back."

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