Lot 1138: DANIEL LEE

DANIEL LEE
(LI XIAO-JING, Born in 1945)
Night Life Series
signed, editioned and dated 'Daniel Lee; 02; 3/6' in English (lower left and lower right)
inkjet archival printed
124 x 87.5 cm. (48 3/4 x 34 1/2 in.)
edition 3/6
Executed in 2002

Private Collection, Asia

"The setting sun often awakens a new landscape of wild life activity, one that is carefully watched by the eyes of predator, scavenger and prey...
My late work Nightlife is a contemporary portrayal of the intrinsic animal interactions between people in today's urban environment."

Breaking from the confines of traditional portraiture, Daniel Lee's works are anything but ordinary. Beginning with stark portraits photographed in high resolution, Lee submits his subjects to the digital wringer, provoking their unsettling metamorphosis into animal-like forms. In Nightlife: Xintiandi (Lot 1139) and Nightlife Series (Lot 1138), the artist digitally manipulates each individual face and human feature, until each is a homogenization between animal and man. There is a broadening of the nose, a lifting of the eyes, protrusion in the chin, and so forth. As humans evolved from primates, Lee's work reflects his point of view on the nature of enduring art.
Lee comes of the persuasion that all creative art requires a gradual step-by-step process. Growing up in conservative country surrounded by Buddhism, Lee was influenced by the idea of reincarnation. However, his work is more indicative of Darwin's theory of evolution, and the idea that we all retain animal instincts within our behavior. Of the twelve characters for Nightlife, each was individually prepared as part of a sequence from a sidewalk cafe scene. Reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper', Lee explores the way he views relationships between men and women today. As an anxious outsider, masked as a curious monkey in the scene, Lee seeks not to create controversy from his work, but thought and debate in the role of technology and evolution in life.