美籍韓裔藝術(shù)家Mike Lee的個展“魚缸”將于2024年1月26日在四方當(dāng)代美術(shù)館位于上海聯(lián)華公寓的銅仁路空間開幕。在延續(xù)過往數(shù)字風(fēng)格的同時，Mike Lee在其2023年的新作中將碎片化的構(gòu)圖與無盡變化的灰度相結(jié)合，重拾情感流動與記憶片段中的人性化經(jīng)驗(yàn)。

Korean-American artist Mike Lee’s solo exhibition Fishbowl will open on January 26, 2024 in Sifang Art Museum’s Tongren Road Space, inside the historic Avenue Apartments in Shanghai. While persisting with his digital style, Mike Lee integrates fragmentary compositions with ever-changing greyscale in his new works created in 2023, retrieving humanized experiences found in emotional fluxes and episodic memories.

Mike Lee 1983年生于美國加州的一個移民家庭，他的作品關(guān)注美國第二代移民的身份認(rèn)同與生存境遇，并將高度個人化的經(jīng)歷轉(zhuǎn)化為普世的內(nèi)在情感體驗(yàn)。黑白灰的極簡用色、Photoshop與AI制圖的電子感，畫家的手感和豐沛的情緒仿若圖層一樣疊加：Mike Lee的繪畫如同科技時代人類生存境況的隱喻——在無限的平滑與精確中，留存“人”的痕跡。

Mike Lee was born in 1983 to an immigrant family in California. His oeuvre centers on the identity and survival issues surrounding second-generation American immigrants, transforming highly personal experiences into universally resonant inner emotions. Amidst the minimalist tones of black, white, and grey, and the digitality of Photoshop and AI-generated images, the tactile sense of the artist’s hand and emotional affluence build up like image layers. Lee’s painting serves as a metaphor for the human condition in the era of technology—exploring how to preserve traces of “human” in a vast landscape of smoothness and precision.

在四方當(dāng)代美術(shù)館上海銅仁路空間中，Mike Lee作品中的精致元素與粗礪的空間形成鮮明對比。“我用盡全力打磨自己的作品，讓它們看起來盡可能完美、潔凈，但其實(shí)我們都在做自己內(nèi)部的工作，我們嘗試改變，我們一直在建設(shè)我們的心靈。這個‘誠實(shí)’的、不完美的非白盒子空間，就像我們所有人。”

The refined elements in Mike Lee’s work form a stark contrast with the coarse appearance of Tongren Road Space in Shanghai. “I do everything I can to make my work as perfect and clean as possible,” says the artist, “but in the end we’re all work in progress inside.” He continues: “We’re constantly trying to change it and it’s always under construction. So I thought it was a very honest interior. You know, not just interior in the space but also in all of us too.”

在這個“誠實(shí)”的空間中，Mike Lee用融合了數(shù)字風(fēng)格和畫家之手的作品，穿透虛幻和真實(shí)的邊界。正如卡夫卡所說：“我們清醒地穿過夢境，我們自己只不過是過去歲月的一個幽靈。”

In this “honest” space, Mike Lee’s works, integrating digital style with the painter’s touch, seem to traverse the boundaries between the fictional and the real. To quote Kafka: “Walking awake through a dream, we are merely specters of a bygone era.”

本次展覽將持續(xù)至2024年2月29日。

The exhibition is on view through February 29, 2024.

** 關(guān)于藝術(shù)家 **

About Artist

Mike Lee

Mike Lee，1983年生于美國加利福尼亞州普拉森，2006年畢業(yè)于加利福尼亞州洛杉磯奧蒂斯藝術(shù)與設(shè)計(jì)學(xué)院，目前生活、工作在紐約布魯克林。他曾于美國紐約的Half Gallery、ATM Gallery，日本東京的Amala Gallery等舉辦個展；并參加了洛杉磯日裔美國人博物館、夏威夷檀香山藝術(shù)博物館、洛杉磯文森特·普萊斯藝術(shù)博物館等機(jī)構(gòu)的群展。

Mike Lee的畫作充滿圖形元素，突出其個人敘事。藝術(shù)家捕捉與人類內(nèi)在情感相聯(lián)的瞬間與情境。其作品中獨(dú)特的灰度與斷裂錯位形式的結(jié)合使用，使他能專注于懷舊與純真，反映我們的記憶相對于現(xiàn)在不斷變化的運(yùn)作方式。受作為美國第二代移民的成長經(jīng)歷的影響，Mike Lee的近作進(jìn)一步結(jié)合語境探索自我身份。在此過程中，他的作品作為一種視覺語言，訴諸于親密關(guān)系的概念。

Mike Lee (b. 1983, Placentia, CA) currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA after receiving his BFA in 2006 from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA, USA. The artist’s work has been exhibited in galleries across New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, including solo exhibitions at Half Gallery and ATM Gallery in New York, Amala Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, and many more. He also participated in group exhibitions at Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California, the Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles, California, and many more.

Mike Lee’s paintings are filled with graphic elements, highlighting his personal narrative. Lee captures a moment or situation that is linked to intrinsic human emotions. The exclusive use of grayscale combined with fractured forms in Lee’s works allows him to focus on the nostalgic quality and innocence, reflecting the way our memory works that is in constant flux in relative to the present. More recent works by the artist have been further contextualized to explore his own identity as a self, influenced by his upbringing as a second-generation immigrant in the United States. In the process, his works serve as a visual language that appeals to the concept of intimacy.