15 Minutes with DICK LEE
Singapore’s most widely-acclaimed multihypenate can now add another feather to his cap. Singer, songwriter, performer and restaurateur Dick Lee will be showing his paintings for the fir st time at Galerie Belvedere at Hill Street. Titled “Galerie Belvedere Presents ‘Imperfect Memor y’ by Dick Lee,” the exhibition took three year s to come to fruition and is a collaboration between the galler y and Lee. As few people other than his family know of this par ticular ar tistic talent of his, BAZAAR inter views the Mad Chinaman to find out more. When did you learn to paint? Art has always been part of my life. Even as a child, I was drawing my own comic books. Later, as a fashion student at Harrow School of Art, I started sketching fashion. These formed the foundation of my love for painting so you can say I have been painting since my childhood. I learned techniques in school, but I also developed my own style as the years went along. Why hold an exhibition of your works only now? I have spent most of my life pursuing my musical dreams as well as my events and fashion businesses, which left little time to do anything else. It has always been a plan of mine to go back to the drawing board, as it were, and spend some time on my other love. I thought that, at this point of my life, I would be able to focus on painting, but for better or worse, my schedule is packed as ever before, and I’ve had to find the time to squeeze it in. It’s been tough, but at the same time, liberating and therapeutic. I started in January this year and it has taken six months to complete the 25 pieces for the exhibition. The pieces depict ’50s Singapore. Why this era in particular? I was born in the ’50s and it seemed apt to start at the beginning, so to speak. I tried to recollect my past and what emerged was a jumble of images I now realise have come from the tiny black-and-white family photographs I’d seen. The paintings are a collage of these “memories” and depict a time of innocence and fun, imagined or real—or, at least, how I would like them to have been. The theme “Imperfect Memory” refers to the process I went through in order to come up with this body of work. Lastly, what inspired your works? They certainly started off being inspired by my mother. She is totally the biggest creative influence in my life. She has always been the life and soul of the party, which has led my innate passion for creating fun for myself and people around me. This is why my first exhibition is dedicated to her and features portraits of her when she was a young girl. But beyond that, the paintings were also a process of going inwards and rediscovering my roots as well as the roots of my country. There is a sense of nostalgia about this exhibition which is also captured in the titles of the two sections of the first series, With Fondest Regards and Yours Affectionately. The second series depicts social scenes of the ’50s which are underlined with questions about the Singapore identity. “Galerie Belvedere Presents ‘Imperfect Memory’ by Dick Lee” runs from October 24 through November 16.Visit www.galerie-belvedere.com