Daniel Lee | The 3rd Color 1986-1992

April 20-June 30, 2024

Opening 4.20 SAT 15:00

The artist Daniel Lee's grandmother passed away when he was nine years old, leaving behind only a faded black and white photograph. His grandmother had very skilled hands; she could embroider symmetric and unique patterns directly onto shoe uppers without sketching first. He remembers that his grandmother never allowed anyone to take photos of him, saying that such things were too ominous and could capture one's soul. When his mother reached the age his grandmother was in his memory, she didn't shy away from taking photographs and would even touch up her lipstick before a photo. When she saw the photos, she couldn't help but praise a few words, saying that he was better at taking photos than others. However, when she saw the enlarged photos of bodies and hell-like scenes he captured, it was as if she hadn't seen them at all, offering no encouragement. He should be content; if his grandmother were still alive and found out her only grandson was making a living by capturing souls, she would be furious.

During his time as a commercial photographer, Daniel Lee deeply felt the clear gap between the commercial market and pure artistic creation. He decided to reduce his work hours to four days a week, delegating all non-contracted photography work to two assistants. From then on, he only played a supervisory role in commercial photography, leaving most of the work and thinking space to art creation.

Early black and white photography has always been seen as a medium for artistic photographic creation, rarely used for pure artistic creation. At a time when digital media was not yet flourishing, artist Daniel Lee utilized color light principles to study rich color contrasts, reinterpreting photographic creation. This led to the birth of a highly experimental third color phase. Between 1986 and 1989, Daniel Lee employed the “dye-transfer print” technique, presenting a variety of images with different themes in his works, ranging from early fruits and flowers to subsequent fish, insects, and nudes, among others. He mixed these different images and used collage techniques to present surreal and whimsical scenes. One of his works, “Collection,” was selected for the I.C.A. Annual Exhibition at the Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery in New York.

Beginning from stark portraits photographed with a high resolution digital camera, Daniel Lee submits his pictorial subjects to the digital wringer, provoking their unsettling metamorphosis into animal-like forms. He appropriately entitled these series "Manimals", "Judgement", "108 Windows", "Origin" and "Nightlife" initially shown at O.K. Harris Works of Art Gallery in New York since 1993, in addition, these works attracted the attention of publications like PBS Television, BBC News, New York Times, American Photo, Zoom, Wired, Art Life, Harper's, Creative Technology magazines and gallery and museum exhibitions in France, Italy, England, Japan, Taiwan, Portugal, Canada, Germany, Austria and Australia.

Known as Lee Xiaojing in Chinese, born in Chunking, China and raised in Taiwan. He moved to United States after he received his BFA in painting from College of Chinese Culture. Then he got his MA degree majored in Photography and Film from Philadelphia College of Art and worked as an Art Director in New York until the late seventies, at which point he changed to photography as a career. Within one and a half decades, he went through different stages in fashion, people to still life collage. Since 1993, computer technology allowed him to combine his various drawing, photographic and fine art skills in one medium.

Daniel Lee's work has been shown internationally in solo exhibitions at Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan (2016), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2016), OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai, China (2005), O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York (1993, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2005), the East Gallery, Taipei (2005), Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2004), CCB Center, Lisbon (1999), the Galerie du Chateau d'Eau, Toulouse (1995), the Fotofo Gallery, Bratislava (1995), both of his "108 Windows" and "Origin" in video installation have been shown in the 2003 Biennale of Venice, to be chosen as the fetured artist by Ars Electronica 2005, Linz, Austria and dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany 2012, .

Lee has lectured at the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University (2005), Maryland Institute College of Art (1997), Ithaca College, New York (1998); the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York (1990); the Beijing Central Art Institute (1986) and the Art School of Shanghai University (1984).

His photographs are included in public and private collections such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Shanghai Art Museum; the National Museum of Art, Taipei Fine Art Museum and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts; the Musee de la Mode de la Ville de Paris; Landes Museum in Linz, Austria; Busan Museum of Art, Korea; Merck & Co., Seattle; Wellcome Collection, London; Museum Center Krasnoyarsk, Russia; White Rabbit Collection, Australia and Documanta, Kassel, Germany.

YIART / 沂藝術
5F-4 No.150, Sec. 1, Heping W Rd, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City
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Curator: YIART/沂藝術