West Virginia-based artist Jason Lee's work mixes varied elements and techniques -- including paper embossments, relief printing, slip-cast porcelain, woodworking, cast plastic, cast rubber, aluminum, and blown glass -- to create colorful and somewhat humorous sculptures and installations. Lee's sculptures mimic the skateboard pseudo-culture's elements and color schemes that were sold to the rabid and disenfranchised youth of 1980s popular media. But this pristine wonderland of suburbia did not reflect the artist's experience growing up, nor the real underground suburban punk rock that was emerging right under its nose. Lee came of age amidst the underground music scene that grew from these saccharine suburban environments. His use of polished and playful color palettes and surfaces mixes with raw industrial materials to reflect the punk and DIY culture that has forever altered the way he sees and approaches the world.
About the Artist
Jason Lee is currently an Associate Professor of Sculpture and Foundations Coordinator in the School of Art and Design at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
A multi-media sculptor and installation artist, Jason Lee incorporates a wide variety of materials and techniques into his oddly humorous constructions and presentations. In some of Lee's most recent work, he utilizes custom fabricated architectural steel elements as well as slip-cast porcelain and embossed paper to create his vision of the idealized suburban landscape.
Jason Lee’s work has been exhibited at MOCA Cleveland Ohio, UB Anderson Gallery Buffalo, NY, NOLA Contemporary Art Museum. New Orleans, LA, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA, Madison Art Center. Madison, WI, and many other venues, beginning in 1999. Lee was born in 1969 in Goldsboro, NC. He received his BFA from Kent State University in 1993 and his MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1998.
