Permanent Collection Manager's Exhibit Reviewed for the ArtScene

Chapman's Permanent Collection Manager, David Lee, had his exhibit, "Spacedout", reviewed for the ArtScene which is a monthly digest in Southern California:

Hard-edge paintings, popularized in 1960s Southern California, are given new life and dimensions by David Michael Lee. The seventeen works here adhere to the hard-edge principles of clean-edged geometric forms with intense primary colors. But he takes artistic liberty with this 50-year-old style in two significant ways. While his forms are precisely and geometrically drawn, his canvas is different from those of hard-edge pioneers Benjamin, McLaughlin, Hammersley and Feitelson. Using hemp over board, Lee gives his works an organic textural look that complements while diverging from that of the older artists work. Lee’s overall effect is softer, more open than traditional hard-edge, approaching a meditative quality. He explains, “Here forms are situated in space, in an openness crafted to explain a vast expanse and how I understand everything moving through time.” Lee, also influenced by his 16-year stint as studio assistant to octogenarian artist Tony DeLap, does not paint on mere canvas; he creates what the older artist refers to as “shaped paintings” or “hyperbolic paraboloids" — artworks that are hybrid paintings and sculpture that stand out from the wall and that seem to change shape as the viewer moves around them. These works, composed of square, rectangular and diamond shapes, all in primary colors, on black or deep blue backgrounds, and they appear to be hovering off the wall of the all-white gallery. They remind us of the pure beauty and artistic significance of basic shapes and colors (Brett Rubbico Gallery, Newport Beach). -Liz Goldner