A SOLO EXHIBITION
January 23rd – February 13th, 2021
Los Angeles, CA
Recent Paintings
Avenue des Arts is pleased to announce the first-ever solo exhibition for Melbourne, Australia-born artist Rhys Lee in Los Angeles, CA. Rhys Lee’s Recent Paintings exhibition brings back his recognizable outlined figures painted with rich oil hues and textures on canvas.
The majority of his new pieces show masked figures placed in an ideal dreamy beach environment-most missed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rather than being disheartening the pieces bright and vibrant colors paired with the humorous figures bring a bit of hopefulness to the viewer. Lee’s amusing characters lifting off their ominous masks, instead, wear colorful bows and celebrate by holding martinis and champagne. The joyousness is represented in all of what we have desired the most to do during the long quarantines-being outdoors and playing with beach balls, swimming, and relaxing while reclining.
The elimination of Covid-19 in Melbourne Australia is represented in Rhys Lee’s beach scenes almost celebrating the end of the quarantined lifestyle. Having these pieces showing in Los Angeles, California, one of the current top cities in the world with the highest Covid-19 cases, is almost paradoxical.
Rhys Lee debuts this new optimistic imagery within all of his most recent paintings for his first solo exhibition with Avenue des Arts.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Rhys Lee
The timeless sense of familiarity and the uncompromising attitude of contemporariness is regularly the first impression one gets when looking at the vibrant oils and pastels Rhys Lee. In his practice, Lee is putting an obvious focus on textures and layers, allowing materials and tools to leave marks of the process. (text by Sasha Bogojev)
Rhys Lee (1975) has held solo exhibitions since 2000 in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and internationally in New York, Germany, Paris and New Zealand. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2019), the Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne (2015), the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2012), Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (2001), The University of Queensland National Artist’s Self Portrait Prize (2009), the Doug Moran Prize at the State Library of New South Wales (2009) and international commercial galleries in the USA, UK, Germany, France and Belgium. Rhys Lee has a Bachelor of Visual Arts, Graphic Design from the Queensland College of Art (1997). A monograph on the artist was published in 2009. Lee’s work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of France, United Bank of Switzerland, Artbank, University of Queensland Art Museum, Sotheby’s & BHP Billiton.
