Originally from California, Mike Lee is a contemporary artist who actively works and lives in Brooklyn, NYC. After receiving his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2006, Lee decided to pursue his artistic career creating pieces exclusively in greyscale. The artist uses simplified human silhouettes to explore contemporary social attitudes and personal anxieties.
By removing detail and blurring identities, his iconic figures enhance the emotional depth of his biographical narratives, making them universally relatable and cathartic. Through grayscale and fractured forms, Lee focuses on nostalgia and innocence, reflecting the fluid nature of memory. Recent works delve into his identity as a second-generation immigrant, creating a visual language of intimacy. His compositions, with a strong graphic style, bring a surreal tone, using contrast to intensify connections between characters and personal stories, all while maintaining a subtle observer’s distance, adding depth to his exploration of personal history.
The artist has showcased his work in various galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. His solo exhibitions have been held at Half Gallery and ATM Gallery in New York, Amala Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, among others. Additionally, he has taken part in group exhibitions at locations such as the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California, the Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles, California, among others.
