ArTIST BIO

Jivan Lee studied painting at Bard College with contemporary New York City painters Joseph Santore and Laura Battle, referring for inspiration to Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Sisely, Bonnard, and Lucian Freud, among others. His work has been shown in solo and group shows locally and nationally and is in private collections throughout the U.S. He has won numerous fellowships and awards for his environmental and artistic work, most recently receiving "NM Powered" grant for the production of mixed-media art on Northern New Mexico's farms, land, and people. Jivan currently lives in Taos, NM, where he paints as well as teaches for the University of New Mexico Taos and The Project for Art and the Environment.

ArTIST STATEMENT

I paint because I love it and hope to share this joy with others. When painting I'm brought back to simplicities, back to my senses, and in a way, back to life. It's respite from moving at breakneck speed, from computers and traffic lights and television and advertisements. On the good days painting becomes a meditation that moves between exhilarating, challenging, and peaceful. To surrender my scripted plans and just listen and look, not knowing what will come, is a trust-fall of sorts and an act of devotion. I learn about the world and remember to breathe more deeply. I'm given permission to take more time, not less. It can be tremendous natural beauty that inspires me or just the play of light in an otherwise unremarkable moment; either way I'm often left more able to engage the world beyond painting with positivity, sincerity, and vitality.

And so the simple act of painting brings transformation and renewal. Its mix of uncertainty, sheer joy, some humbled groveling, satisfaction, awe, and trancelike motion dissolves the excess in my psyche and leaves me clearer in mind and heart. I deeply believe this can translate to others through a finished work. In a time filled with so much that can leave us far from the subtle pulse of a day, acts of simplification--for me, painting--seem like time well spent. My hope is that by listening when something luminous calls, by partaking in the alchemy of painting and surrendering to an unknowable outcome, something inspiring will develop on the canvas and eventually touches someone else's heart.

My paintings are made from life and on-location, using tubes of paint, big brushes, pallet knives, and occasionally my hands. Most often my car's trunk is my easel, allowing me the satisfaction of the outdoors while protecting paintings from the blustery wind of Northern New Mexico. Where once I painted highly representational work with minimal impasto, over the last several years my paintings have grown increasingly heavy with paint and liberal in their response to reality. The challenge has been pushing the lines between abstract and representational, between paint as a substance, as a creator of image, and as a catalyst for emotional response. In so far as a painting dances along these lines while remaining luminous, surprising, and directly informed by rigors inherent in any composition, I find a measure of success and satisfaction.