AUSTIN LEE
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January 25 - March 8, 2014
Postmasters is pleased to present a show of paintings by Austin Lee, the artist's first solo exhibition after
receiving MFA from Yale University in 2013. The exhibition is titled OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK
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Painting is a strange thing to do but so is everything else.
Austin Lee
Austin Lee's paintings are familiar, yet strange, otherworldly, yet immersive. While
they are often figurative, there is a level of abstraction that takes the simplest and
most recognizable of forms into another space, disassociated from the tangible. We find
ourselves looking at figures, shapes, and colors that hover between the opposing forces
from which they are brought forth, namely, the physical and the digital, representative
and abstract, graphical and human. These binaries become fluid through the contrasting
qualities that comprise Lee's paintings: stark and supple, opaque and lucid, stable and fleeting.
Lee often begins his process by using an iPad to make digital drawings. Drawing, perhaps
one of the quickest ways for an artist to translate a thought into something visual, is
made almost immediate by sketching with the iPad. Drawing and erasing become swiping and
undoing, enabling the ability to endlessly render and alter images. This method of working
is inherently more visceral than analog drawing techniques, in that the hand is actually
freer, unrestrained, and spontaneous, yielding entirely expressive results from what seem
to be the simplest of lines. Mistakes, chance, and the accidental thus become central to
Lee's playful and curious explorations on and through the screen, and subsequently on canvas.
Lee's paintings exhibit these very qualities, as he translates the uninhibited and intuitive
process of gestural mark-making from one media to another. Both modes of working capture the
quickness and impulsiveness of his movements; yet painting instills the process with slowness,
facilitating moments of reflection and self-awareness, while at the same time opening up another
channel for exploring the intentional and the incidental.
It has been noted that Lee's paintings look very different when viewed on the screen versus when
seen in person.1 This is necessarily true for many, if not all, art "objects" today, which inevitably
end up online in some form or another. Yet, the fact that there is such a distinct contrast between
the screen image versus the physical object evinces the unique quality Lee captures in his paintings.
Living through the screen has become so familiar that it has almost become an afterthought because of
its ubiquity. Lee revitalizes our awareness of the screen, creating an almost ineffable plane of floating
forms that invites immersive and introspective viewing. Ultimately, Lee's paintings reflect a new sort of
visuality, elucidating our technologically informed way of thinking, seeing, and being in the world.
-Kerry Doran, New York, January 2014
1. Marina Galperina, "Artist's Notebook: Austin Lee," Animal, December 23, 2013
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AUSTIN LEE Dropsy 2013 flash acrylic on canvas 72 x 96 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE installation view |
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AUSTIN LEE Displaced 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 48 x 54 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE YOLO 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 50 x 45.5 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE Mr. Worry 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 50 x 45.5 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE Disillusion 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 35.5 x 25.5 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE Taboo 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 84 x 64 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE installation view |
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AUSTIN LEE :( 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 84 x 60 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE Installation view |
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AUSTIN LEE Damaged 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 14 x 18 inches |
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AUSTIN LEEMD 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 16 x 20 inches |
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AUSTIN LEEPeek 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 24 x 18 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE _ 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 90 x 65.25 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE Excremental 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 90 x 66 inches |
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AUSTIN LEE Mortido 2013 flashe acrylic on canvas 48 x 94 inches |