"Austin Lee: Paradise on Earth" exhibition site, Mumu Art Museum (798 Art District), 2022
At the beginning of the new year, Beijing's first contemporary art exhibition, "Austin Lee: Paradise on Earth", presented by mumu art museum, kicked off in a heavy snow. This is undoubtedly a special exhibition. The moment you walk into the scene, the audience can be completely immersed in it, which is like a children's paradise, full of rich imagination.
This is not only because of the colorful paintings, installations, animations and other media presented in the exhibition, but also because of the unique creative methods used by the artist and his views on art and painting.
Explore the world of painting with computer technology
Born in 1983 in Las Vegas, Lee graduated from the Taylor School of the Arts and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of art in 2013. His artistic creation is unique in that it pays homage to Renaissance painting and Western modern and contemporary art classics, while also embodying the interconnected digital landscape of the moment.
Around 2004 or 2005, Austin Lee began to paint with Photoshop, which was the starting point for his personal painting, which was also an important starting point and moment for him.
When he finished his first Photoshop painting, he was very excited because it was a whole new experience unlike traditional painting. It was also from that time that he used computer technology to explore the world of painting. And created a lot of unimaginable subjects.
In his view, computer technology has changed the way we see the world, changing our everyday perceptions, as well as the way we understand and view images. We use computers today with almost no rules. Austin believes that the same is true of computer painting.
All along, Austin has been torn between digital painting and traditional painting, trying to find a balance in it. For example, he would sketch on paper, then take pictures and create on the computer. At the same time, he often converted digital images into paintings, and to his surprise, computers often perform tasks brilliantly. Robot painting is often able to paint in a fearless way than traditional painting, and never stops. This inspired Austen tremendously, even when he was creating traditional paintings.
Austin has been exploring new possibilities and directions in painting and has constantly practiced his ideas in his creations. The creations of many masters of modern art, such as Matisse, Chagall, etc., will bring inspiration to him. For example, in this exhibition, there are works that pay tribute to Matisse, and there are also works inspired by Chagall.
Specular Reflection 2 2021 Acrylic on canvas 152 x 152 cm
Works by Peres Projects Gallery (Berlin).
The exhibition "Mirror Reflection 2" refers to the cover art of Mark Chagall's personal biography "My Life". At the time of the creation of this work, it was a moment of self-doubt in Austen's artistic career, and then the artist also made the work into an animation work, and in the exploration and attempt to make animation, it inspired Austen to find a new direction of painting. This also became an extremely valuable lesson in Austin's life: just keep moving forward, and Well did his best to learn and grow in the process.
"Austin Lee: Paradise on Earth", 1st Floor Exhibition Hall, Immersive Installation "Human Nature", Mumu Art Museum (798 Art District), 2022
After three years of preparation, Austin Lee's first art gallery solo exhibition was presented at the Mumu Museum
The solo exhibition at the Mumu Art Museum was originally scheduled to be presented in 2019, but due to the sudden outbreak of the epidemic, the exhibition was postponed for 3 years, so the exhibition took three years to plan. Bring more brand new works. As a result, the exhibition is not only the first art gallery solo exhibition of Austin Lee, a young American artist, but also the largest and most comprehensive exhibition by Austin Lee to date.
The exhibition brings together the artist's recent creations from 2019-2022 – including paintings, animations, large-scale installations, and a commissioned site-specific work. From this, we can see the development and transformation of an artist's creative vein from the pre-epidemic era to the post-epidemic era.
The exhibition is presented in the two-story exhibition hall of the 798 Art District of mumu art museum. On the first floor of the exhibition hall, animation and installation works are mainly presented, the most attractive of which is the specific field work created specifically for the exhibition: "Human Nature".
The Fountain of Relaxation (2021)
"Human Nature" is a painting originally conceived for a solo exhibition at the Mumu Art Museum in 2019, and this time, the artist expanded it into an immersive environment and added a video animation. This surreal landscape that combines simulation and nature is very eye-catching at the exhibition site. Among them, the artist's first public sculpture, The Relaxing Fountain (2021), is also an important part of this work, placed in the center of the exhibition hall.
Immersed in it, the audience is immersed in a world where virtual and reality blend. Those weightless trees, artificial grass, clumpy benches and reflective ground like the surface of the water, etc., these from the real world, but different from the real world landscape, bring people an unreal feeling, walking in the exhibition hall, bringing the audience a complex and diverse experience.
Animation "Dance" 2020 animation
On the walls of the three exhibition halls surrounding the work "Human Nature", a number of animation works are presented, which are equally interesting. For example, there is "Dance dedicated to Matisse", which was also copied by the artist in his room, bringing a lot of fun to his life. There are also many works that express the state of man, such as "Sitting" and so on.
Mr. Austin 2019 Fiber and resin reinforced foam, steel skeleton, acrylic 198 x 318 x 66 cm
On the first floor there is also a large sculpture, a self-portrait of the artist himself: "Mr. Austin". The work is not a traditional self-portrait, but was inspired by a portrait made for him by his neighbors in Austin many years ago. This image seems very vivid and interesting to Austin, because it shows childlike joy and enthusiasm. Inspired by this, Austin created paintings and sculptures about his self-portraits.
In the second-floor space, more emphasis is placed on physical entities, mainly painting, but also sculptures interspersed with them. Depending on the themes expressed in the works, the curators and artists especially present them in different spaces when setting up the exhibition, including: figure paintings, fears, flower galleries, relaxing rooms, animation spaces, and so on.
People 2019 Acrylic on canvas 213 × 152 cm
Enter the first exhibition hall on the second floor, where a series of works with the theme of "figure painting" is on display. The focus of the artist's figure paintings is not on people, but on human emotions. In the artist's view, most people experience emotions, but it may be difficult to understand them, and a good painting may be able to make people feel something. Just like the work "People" in this exhibition hall, the same picture, the artist uses different colors to express, so that people experience different emotions.
"Smoking Cat" 2019 Acrylic on canvas 213 × 152 cm
Entering the second exhibition hall, this emotion is concretized into the theme of "fear". Over the past few years, the world has been in a state of fear and uncertainty, which has pervaded Austin's life, and he reflects this emotion into the picture. In this exhibition hall, a painting of "Smoking Cat" is full of fun. Austin couldn't understand that humans sometimes do strange things. Smoking, for example, is one of them, which is obviously a chronic suicide thing, but it is very popular all over the world. In Austin's painting, cat smoking seems to be a very strange thing, but perhaps from another point of view, human smoking is also a strange thing.
"Austin Lee: Paradise on Earth", 2nd Floor Flower Gallery Exhibition Hall, Mumu Art Museum (798 Art District), 2022
Flower 2019 Acrylic on canvas 183 × 467 cm
In the gallery exhibition hall, many paintings about flowers are exhibited. The artist began painting flowers to see if he could paint a painting that was unoccupied, but he found himself unable to do so. All flowers were human to him, Austin said, and he could only paint the things that were alive.
On the second floor, the artist's first paintings created using virtual reality software are also on display. In the exhibition hall "The Room of Relaxation", the "Painting of Relaxation" and the sculptures based on this one painting are on display.
"Austin Lee: Paradise on Earth" Two-Story Animation Space, Mumu Art Museum (798 Art District), 2022
Animation Space showcases Austin's recent exploration of digital space using motion capture technology and 3D animation. In the animation works, the piano music created by the artist himself echoes the images in the animation, and the two present a just right effect. Austin looks at these animated works from an open perspective similar to that of painting. He will touch on some ideas and ideas in the process of creation, but at the same time leave room for the audience to reflect. It is hoped that these works will enable the viewer to gain a deeper understanding of his inner world and the way he views painting and sculpture.
Conclusion: This exhibition attempts to explore the significance of Austin Lee to the development of painting, and his works transcend the traditional definition of painting and enter the special field where art and technology blend. The artist presents the weightless experience of the imaginary world and the multiple light sources in his paintings. The exhibition's works move between the field of virtual reality and the symbols of the real world, placing the two in a groundbreaking, empirical unity.
Austin Lee: Paradise on Earth
2022 February 13-2022 May 8
Mumu Museum (Museum 798)