ARTIST STATEMENT

My work begins as a step into the unknown, by letting go of expectations and having no thought of what’s to come. Each piece is an improvised call and response with the mediums at hand. With a constant reactive expression to the continually transforming composition. My work is concerned with not being concerned. Each piece is approached both consciously and unconsciously; intentionally and unintentionally; rationally and irrationally. The paradoxes which lay at the heart of my work are a way of revealing an interdependence and harmony of dualities.

Each piece begins with a type of automatic drawing. This is the unconscious expression of pure movement and gesture. My actions are not conditioned by an ideal composition, I do not know what the piece will look like and trust only in my ability to react to the materials. The process becomes a meditation on the ever changing moment as I relax and let forms evolve and dissolve as they may. As marks continue to accumulate, I begin to make associations which change how I perceive and react to the piece. Every mark is an accident, but no mark is a mistake, and every unintentional gesture becomes intentional as it is integrated into the whole.

I want to express that feeling which preceded words, that thing which we feel but cannot say. There is no symbolic or representational imagery in my work. The viewer confronts a chaotic field which the mind scrambles to make sense of. From the depths of the unconscious are projected associations to forms and feelings which the viewer then becomes conscious of. As I play a role in the synthesis of the piece, the viewer plays a crucial role in the meaning of the piece.

BIOGRAPHY

Zack John Lee is an artist based in Pittsburgh whose work focuses on the communication of unspoken experience. Thematically his work is concerned with the harmonizing of dualities and builds off of improvised structures. Primarily working in ink, his practice explores a range of mediums and their relations. Zack has earned a BA in Studio Arts from the University of Pittsburgh and his work has been shown in the first exhibition at the Verum Ultimum Gallery in Portland as well as pop-up galleries throughout Pittsburgh. His work has been awarded both the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Studies Award and the Betty Blockstein Levine Memorial Award.