Category Archives: PaintingPhotography

Cirage / Polish Paintings, 2021-2024

above installation images by Byron Dauncey


Polish Paintings (2021) continues Lee’s trajectory of experimental paintings made using nontraditional materials. Common household shoe polish, a waxy substance that produces an effect similar to oil paint, here creates a series of glossy veneers that reference the high status of the “black square monochrome painting” during the modern art era of the 1950s and ’60s. Such historical paintings continue to fetch millions of dollars at auction, and Lee urges us to consider the value we place on objects and artworks through these substitutes that reference the occupation of shoe shiners and the classism inherent in the economy of artistic production.  (Kate Henderson)

Forest Fires, 2009-10 (series)

Forest Fires, 2009-10

In the landscape series Forest Fires the artist continues to employ the manipulated printer ink technique used in Flashers to found images of British Columbia forest fires.

The artist approaches this material in a way that reflects these shifts: he experiments with printing on the back of expired photographic paper and works over the still-wet pigment ink using a paintbrush. This results in a unique (un-duplicable) image that is faint and distorted, and resembles a painting, while remaining fundamentally a photograph. The substrate’s watermark, which reads “KODAK PROFESSIONAL PAPER”, once the proud hallmark of Kodak’s analog photographic legacy, remains visible in the overexposure.

Installation View, In Dialogue with Carr, Vancouver Art Gallery,
Image courtesy Rachel Topham/VAG

Flashers, 2009 (series)

Flashers, 2009 (series)

The series Flashers examines self-representation nude selfies found online. Each of them was taken in the mirror with flash, resulting in overexposed area that obscures the identity of the subject. 
Collectively, the images are a testament to the change that aesthetics, photography and sexuality have undergone due to the development of digital photography and the Internet.

The artist approaches this material in a way that reflects these shifts: he experiments with printing on the back of expired photographic paper and works over the still-wet pigment ink using a paintbrush. This results in a unique (un-duplicable) image that is faint and distorted, and resembles a painting, while remaining fundamentally a photograph. The substrate’s watermark, which reads “KODAK PROFESSIONAL PAPER”, once the proud hallmark of Kodak’s analog photographic legacy, remains visible in the overexposure.

Installation view, Flashers at Restricted, Monte Clark Gallery