TIMOTHY HON HUNG LEE

At a glance Lee’s work could be described as a mixture of still life and portraiture, however these terms fail to accurately describe the nature of his paintings. Using traditional Asian mediums such as ink and rice paper, his practice aims to question the capacity of still life and portraiture to convey meaning.

The works are constructs of the artists imagination and memory and focus on the sensations of the subject, or object, rather than relying on visual mimesis. Lee’s paintings contain contrary themes, with life, death, beauty and decay co-existing in his works. Therefore the paintings are paradoxical in nature and are ultimately a meditation on the futility and absurdity of the human condition. This is poignantly revealed in the tension between the fragility of the rice paper and his often-violent paint application.