Patrick Philip Lee
PATRICK PHILIP LEE
22 APRIL - 28 MAY 2010
Press Release
New York, New York – Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe is pleased to announce the first, New York, solo exhibition of drawings by Patrick Lee. Patrick Lee opens to the public on April 22 and will be on view until May 28. There will be a public reception for the artist on Thursday, April 22 from 6 to 8 pm.
This exhibition will feature graphite works on paper from
Patrick Lee’s Deadly Friends series. The drawings in this series are portraits based on photographs that Lee has taken over the past decade of men he has encountered on the streets of Los Angeles. Lee is a master draftsman and each of his drawings is painstakingly crafted over many labor-intensive months of refinement. His technical skill is evident in the subtle nuances and visual complexities of his images; rays of light, shadows, muscles, pores, intricate neck chains, facial hair, even blemishes and scars all are rendered in photorealistic detail.
Lee’s subjects are intimidating figures, often drifters, outlaws, and gang members with fascinating and frightening stories to tell. They are men with threatening stares and broad, muscular bodies covered in gruesome scars and audacious tattoos that indicate gang affiliation, prison time and hard-won life lessons. Lee explores the way in which these physical signs of aggression and elements of style are utilized to communicate complex codes of identity and amplify the subjects’ fearsome masculinity. The artist focuses his attention particularly on the gaze of his subjects and their expressions of hostility, pride, stoicism, strength and apathy that seem to be worn as protective masks. Aided by his inimitable technique, Lee’s drawings go beyond the obvious harsh physical exteriors to expose the humanity of these individuals whom society dismisses as outcasts or thugs.
Patrick Lee was born in Butte, Montana in 1969 and attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Lee’s work is in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. Patrick Lee lives and works in Los Angeles, California.