Popping Perceptions
YOU MAY KNOW HIM FOR HIS HEADPHONE-WEARING TERRACOTTA WARRIORS AND LAPTOP-TOTING CHINESE COURT LADIES BUT JUSTIN LEE WANTS YOU TO KNOW THAT THERE’S MORE TO HIM THAN POP ART
Visitors to award-winning multidisciplinary artist Justin Lee’s solo exhibition, Ten Years of Art and Craft, may recall seeing a metal trash bin with the words ‘Anti-warhol’ emblazoned across it. Consider that his way of letting you know what he thinks of all the comparisons to the iconic American artist that have been dogging him since his first solo outing, Double Happiness, in 2003. “The media has no idea what my art is about,” he says drily. “The only thing they cross-refer to is pop art and the worst thing is when they call me Singapore’s Andy Warhol. It’s nice to be recognised but I don’t like to be labelled as someone else. That’s why I came up with this piece to show that I’ve moved on.”
More Than Meets The Eye
Sitting in his airy studio at the Goodman Arts Centre, dressed in a three-quarter sleeve tee and a pair of lime green Keen sneakers, Lee could easily pass for someone in his 30s (he’s 50) and when he speaks, it’s with the enthusiasm of someone even younger. A walking example of the adage that ‘age is just a number’, Lee was 30 when he decided to become an artist after an 11-year stint as an air force personnel (“I didn’t have good ‘O’-level results so I couldn’t go anywhere else,” he says matter-of-factly) and a sojourn as a graphic designer. “I’ve always liked drawing and painting,” he says, adding that even when he was in the army, he had taken part-time courses in traditional Chinese painting. “We only live once. If I don’t do it now, I might not be able to do it in my next life because who knows? I might come back as a bird or a tree,” he continues philosophically. He enrolled at what was then known as the Lasalle-sia College of the Arts to study Western painting, and what made his decision an even bigger leap of faith was the fact that the 1997 Asian financial crisis was just around the corner at the time. Indeed, Lee recalls how he was so broke he couldn’t even afford a movie ticket back then. Yet as dire as his financial situation was back then, you will never hear him describing himself as a starving artist.
“We only live once. If I don’t do it now, I might not be able to do it in my next life because who knows?”
“I’m quite a positive person. Even if the sky drops down, I will tell myself that I can survive,” he says, revealing how he once worked as a tutor, salesman and hotel receptionist during his two-month break. “I have never considered myself a starving artist. It’s only when you don’t want to do anything that you’ll starve.” Fortunately for Lee, he hasn’t had to worry about scraping by since those lean early years. His first show Double Happiness: a Fantasy in Red, struck a chord with many with its irreverent commentary on consumerism and Singapore’s East-meets-west culture through the adaptation of traditional Chinese paper cuttings. And thanks in part to a minor controversy that erupted over his depiction of the national f lag, not only did he sell 70 per cent of his
works on the opening night, the exhibition also brought him to the attention of several first-time art buyers as well. Accolades such as the Philip Morris Singapore Art Award in 2005 and his inclusion in the Mont Blanc Young Artist World Patronage Project in 2006, further cemented his position at the forefront of Singapore’s contemporary art scene. However rather than continue with what’s proven to be popular with his audience, Lee has been deliberately seeking out new mediums, environments and people to work with to push himself out of his comfort zone. His recent exhibitions have seen him venturing into performance art, and compared to the striking red pop art prints that most people have come to associate with him, the works produced during his recent art residency at Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo have an organic and abstract quality to them. “I want to tell people that I can do more than Double Happiness,” he explains, adding that art is not just about selling one’s pieces. Indeed, asked what he’d like to achieve with his work, he replies that he’d like “to bring out the inner child in adults” and laments how even children have lost their sense of imagination these days. “Look at the mobile games that kids play nowadays. They’re so boring. All they require is a one-finger movement,” he says swiping his finger through the air to illustrate his point. “Even when these kids play basketball or football, it’s within
the confines of their ipad. Not only are they not physically involved, their minds are not moving either. It’s quite sad.”
The Road Ahead
At present, apart from conducting research for his next solo exhibition, which he hopes to hold in the next two or three years, he also teaches part-time at his alma mater, Lasalle. It’s all part of how he sees his role as an artist evolving, he says, explaining that he’d like to share his knowledge as a practising artist with the next generation of creative talent, something that he never got a chance to experience when he was in school. And then there is the charity work he does with the elderly and children