Philip Lee

About me

Born 5.5.48 in Woolwich, London to an English father and Italian mother.

Lived and worked in England, Wales, Italy and Germany, in a wide range of professions – Designer in Plastics, Garden Designer, 15th Century Painting Restorer, Assistant Manager of a Shipping Office, Container Controller for Europe, Teacher of Art, Horticulture and Maths in State and Special Needs schools, etc. Having retired from teaching I have returned to working as a Professional Artist.

LANDCSAPES

My pastel landscapes are a celebration of the living natural world. I want to share with others the same sense of delight that I experience when looking at the world around me. I try to achieve this by giving my subjects a rich surface texture, freely painted, yet true to nature. The tapestry of mark making and the illusion of realism are like the world around us – a constantly changing blend of order and chaos.

SURREAL

Its not just dreams that are fragments of memory all mixed up; memory works in the same way in our waking life. In my surreal work I link various bits of memory, re-ordering the chaotic pieces into an alternative whole, another reality. The later Deluge series sees the addition of ambiguity to the mix – these paintings pose not only the question : why are these things positioned together? But also : what are they?

FIGURE

The figure and dance pictures try to show something more in people than their outward appearance. We are not superimposed onto a background in our daily lives, we operate within our world and the world affects us. In my figures the background or life-context flows with and through the figures, adding a sense of time, movement and belonging.

Education

1965 - 66 Folkestone School of Art

1966 Gloucestershire College of Art

1979 - 82 Christchurch College, Canterbury

Exhibitions

1971 Piazza Santa Restituta, Ischia, Italy : One-man show

1971 Ischia Ponte, Italy : One-man show

1971 Posseidon, Ischia, Italy : One-man show

1971 Munich Christmas Fayre, Germany

1975 Town Hall, Nieder-Olm , Germany

1978 Two surreal paintings published by Science Fiction Monthly

1981 Kent University, England : One-man show

1981 Folkestone Library, England : One-man show

1985 Pastel Society, Mall Galleries, London

1989 Jay Designs, Ruthin, N.Wales

1989 Gales Café, Llangollen, N.Wales

1990 Llangollen Arts Centre, N.Wales : One-man show

1990 Llangollen exhibition featured on local TV

1990 Jay Designs, N . Wales :

1991 Ruthin Arts Centre, N.Wales : One-man show

1991 Ruthin Fine Arts, N.Wales :

1991 Cardiff Craft Centre, S.Wales : N.Wales Potters exhibition

2008 Imagen Gallery, Hastings, (Jan – April)

2008 Lincoln Joyce Fine Art, Gt. Bookham, ‘Light Fantastic’ (April)

2008 Lincoln Joyce Fine Art, Gt. Bookham, ‘That’s Entertainment’ (May)

2008 Lincoln Joyce Fine Art, Gt. Bookham, ‘Summer Exhibition’ (July)

2009 ‘Artists for Artists’ gala event, Vienna, Austria (Nov)