Conceived with exhibition curator Victor Wang during a period of isolation and solitude, the exhibition focuses on emotion, growth, and feelings as fundamental themes in Lee’s work. Moreover, a range of feelings and colors guide the layout of each room, together with correlating symbols designed by the artist, to further communicate Lee’s ideas of connectivity.
Part of a new genesis in painting, Lee’s creative practice involves producing artworks initially in virtual reality - within a computer program before later materialising them as paintings, installations, and sculptures. Balancing between the real and the virtual, the exhibition explores the important questions that Lee’s work and this exhibition raise: How do we translate human emotion through digital technology, and how has the advancement of technology helped us better understand the depth of human feelings? This is perhaps best exemplified in works such as Cry Baby (2021) and Train Tears 2 (2021) where the complexity of emotion attached to crying and the range of human feeling entangled between sadness and happiness are explored through the characters portrayed.
In 1981, American art historian, critic and curator Douglas Crimp asked: ‘What makes it possible to see a painting as a painting?’. In 2022, we may expand on this to ask: How is painting also a type of ‘rendering technology’ that helps us understand our reality? “A technology”, says Austin Lee, “that has been shared throughout human history”.
Growth is another important theme that is examined in the exhibition. Several of the works on display, such as Smoking Cat, were originally conceived by Lee in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, Lee’s practice has undergone major shifts, both in terms of aesthetics and medium: these changes are also reflected in the exhibition, and in new works such as Smoking Cat 2. These new series of works, created during an intense time of social isolation, also follow the challenging shifts that Lee underwent between 2019 and 2021.
Source: M WOODS exhibition page
Conceived with exhibition curator Victor Wang during a period of isolation and solitude, the exhibition focuses on emotion, growth, and feelings as fundamental themes in Lee’s work. Moreover, a range of feelings and colors guide the layout of each room, together with correlating symbols designed by the artist, to further communicate Lee’s ideas of connectivity.
Part of a new genesis in painting, Lee’s creative practice involves producing artworks initially in virtual reality - within a computer program before later materialising them as paintings, installations, and sculptures. Balancing between the real and the virtual, the exhibition explores the important questions that Lee’s work and this exhibition raise: How do we translate human emotion through digital technology, and how has the advancement of technology helped us better understand the depth of human feelings? This is perhaps best exemplified in works such as Cry Baby (2021) and Train Tears 2 (2021) where the complexity of emotion attached to crying and the range of human feeling entangled between sadness and happiness are explored through the characters portrayed.
In 1981, American art historian, critic and curator Douglas Crimp asked: ‘What makes it possible to see a painting as a painting?’. In 2022, we may expand on this to ask: How is painting also a type of ‘rendering technology’ that helps us understand our reality? “A technology”, says Austin Lee, “that has been shared throughout human history”.
Growth is another important theme that is examined in the exhibition. Several of the works on display, such as Smoking Cat, were originally conceived by Lee in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, Lee’s practice has undergone major shifts, both in terms of aesthetics and medium: these changes are also reflected in the exhibition, and in new works such as Smoking Cat 2. These new series of works, created during an intense time of social isolation, also follow the challenging shifts that Lee underwent between 2019 and 2021.
Source: M WOODS exhibition page
