Leveling Up in Highwood /  by Eric Lee

In June 2024, I had the opportunity to paint two murals on the exterior of Buffo’s in Highwood, IL, as part of the Highwood Mural Festival. With two walls on different levels, I wanted to connect them through a theme that would be instantly recognizable and fun for everyone passing by.

The IDEA

Mario Bros felt like the perfect fit. The two-story setup created a natural “game level” effect, and the vent on the second floor sparked the vision: with a little paint and ingenuity, it could transform into a mushroom popping out of a block.

Turning a vent hood into a mushroom took some problem-solving. I teamed up with my friend and fellow artist, sculptor Jonathan Michael Johnson, and together we came up with a plan. He 3D-printed a custom mushroom top to fit a new vent hood. After I painted it, we installed the piece on top of the wall. It was a fun collaboration, and I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out.

Highwood has such an energy during the mural festival, and it was an honor to add my work to the city’s growing collection of public art. Here’s the finished piece:

A huge thank you to Lulu and Koz for inviting me to be part of the Highwood Mural Festival, and to the people of Highwood for being so warm and welcoming.

"Breaking the Bank" All Star Press Solo Show - Nov 11, 2023 /  by Eric Lee

What makes something valuable? Is it the material, the story behind it? In my recent exhibition Breaking the Bank, I set out to explore how we assign value to objects and what happens when art itself becomes currency.

The Concept

The show takes place in a cartoon universe where you, the viewer, are the main character. Inside the gallery, the space transformed into a playful reimagining of a bank complete with paintings, sculptures, and prints recast as new forms of currency.

The Work

 

Breaking the Bank was a chance to rethink not just how we look at art, but how we value it. I’m grateful for the opportunity to create and share a new body of work that takes themes I’ve been exploring for years to the next level.

Sun-Times Article /  by Eric Lee

Such an honor to be highlighted in the Sun-Times.
If you’re interested to read how some of my recent murals came about and the ideas behind them Click here

A huge thank you to Robert Herguth for caring enough to share.

"When it Rains it Pours" - Behind the Scenes /  by Eric Lee

I was chosen by Lakeview Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce for a yearly commission to paint 8 pieces under the Brown line stop on Southport. I thought seeing a series of superheroes crying could be a powerful visual for a grouping of large public canvases all lined up together.

On the back of the piece has one continuous scene of rain.

The storm has light peaking through the middle and it receding into darkness on the edges. For me this is a metaphor that works to mirror the tears coming from the eyes of the superheroes (like the sky is crying with them), while also being a representation of the storm: a passing darkness. As we know all of the superheroes stories, we know that they always find a way to triumph and get themselves out of their patch of darkness.

I was asked by many people when I was painting why the superheroes were crying. I told them that the representation of a superhero in most our minds is one of strength and ability. Seeing them crying catches us a bit off guard. At the moment these characters are vulnerable and revealing a softness. I feel it’s important we’re able to keep these two seemingly opposing ideas in our head at the same time: strength and vulnerability. And seeing idealized versions of ourselves going through pain can become a symbol of all of our suffering. It’s something that unites us. That’s the type of message I’d like to bring to the public.

Thank you to the Lakeview Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce for allowing me to create these pieces.

"In Cahoots" - LOOT 2022 /  by Eric Lee

“In Cahoots” was a one day event in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Dec 10th 2022. LOOT is a unique collaborative venture bringing artists together to create currencies out of art mediums: paintings, sculptures and prints.

This year I created four gold coin sculpture collaborations. All LOOT coin sculptures were created with sculptor Jonathan Michael Johnson. Special edition coin designs were offered by artists Steve Seeley and Lauren Asta.


Like real money these physical pieces are also digital, connected to the Trove ID platform. This public fine art archive provides royalties for artists and a trusted marketplace with transparent histories of art for collectors.

I also created collaborative paintings with Steve Seeley and Lauren Asta. I allowed Steve and Lauren to decide what the paintings were about. I saw my job as depicting the value of the piece, in a way that complemented the work. As always, the paintings sold for the amount of coins in the painting ($50 a coin this year).

The last piece I created for the show was a limited edition print with artist and printmaker Andrew Ghrist of Firecrest Press. The unit of value for my paintings and sculptures has always been gold coins. I thought when creating a print, it made the most sense to print bills. So with the help of Andrew, that’s just what we did.

The print is front and back. Each bill represented $5, so each sheet of 18 sold for $90. I struggled with how to represent the bills for months. Instead of representing any specific bill, I tried to create placeholders representing what money is in general. The piece ended up becoming a stage with props, set to tell the story of money.

Overall the show was a big success. A huge thank you to the collaborating artists: Jonathan Johnson, Lauren Asta and Steve Seeley. A special thank you to Scud One for making a phenomenal mix of music that set the perfect mood throughout the night. To my parents for coming to help put up and take down the show in one day (while my usual partner in crime, my wife, looked after our new little one). And to everyone that made it to the show… you’re the reason I do it. Cheers

Behind the scenes: "Rising" Mural for Catherine Cook School in Chicago /  by Eric Lee

Early in 2022 I was asked if I’d be interested in creating a mural as an auction item for Catherine Cook School’s annual fundraiser. They had an empty wall and I was confident I could figure out an interesting way to fill it.

The empty wall

I created and pitched a couple ideas and one went over very well. The administrators asked if I would be willing to present it at their annual fundraiser night. So I went up on stage and talked about what the mural represented and why I wanted to create it.

I was amazed when bidding kept getting higher and higher. Sponsoring the mural ended up being one of the highest bids of the evening!

A photo of the finished mural:

At the fundraiser, I talked about how Catherine Cook was teaching their students character, work ethic, and the skills they’d be taking out into the world after graduation. One window was closed, full of balloons looking on as balloons in an open window float off to new places. All the balloons are the Catherine Cook green.

I really enjoyed creating the piece for the school and the kids.
Here are a few photos of the piece in creation:

"Hide & Seek" Mural for Lake View East and Wear Moi Chicago /  by Eric Lee

Photo by Peter Hinsdale

Elisabeth and Christophe Ridet, founders of the international dance wear brand Wear Moi, approached me late in 2021 to see if I would be interested in creating a piece on the side of their beautiful brick building where their store is located. Lake View East Chamber of Commerce was funding the project.

They loved the series of work I created in 2018 with Hubbard Street Dance Company depicting dancers coming through ornate gold frames, and wondered if we could make something similar:

After a couple rounds of mock-ups, we decided we’d like to recreate the piece “Hide & Seek” on a grand scale (depicting dancer Jacqueline Burnett)
A bit of the process in making the original painting:

We sent the artwork to Lake View East Chamber of Commerce and the building owner for approval, and thank goodness they loved the piece too. Now we just needed to wait for a window of decent weather.

I started the piece mid April 2022, with an exterior masonry paint as the first layer. I’ve found that on brick, it helps knock off any loose mortar and gives a good base. From there I made a doodle grid. A lot of people wondered why I wrote all over the wall and then covered it up. Creating these marks and then matching the mock up to the doodles allowed me to lay out the piece proportionally.

The rest of the mural was created with 13 colors of spray paint. It’s the most detailed large scale mural I’ve done. It took a total of 9 days of painting over a 2 week period. Here are a few photos throughout (the good photos are by Peter Hinsdale):

And finally, a time-lapse of the piece from start to finish (cut and edited by Ben Hood) :

A huge thank you to Maureen and the Lake View East Chamber of Commerce for funding the project. Thank you to Christophe, Elisabeth and everyone at Wear Moi for fascilitating the creation of the piece! They made it such a fun project. To Jacqueline Burnett and Hubbard Street Dance for the inspiration. And last but not least, this piece would have never happened without a very important introduction from Marie-Pierre Rondeau :) thank you for believing in me and my work.

"E.LEE: A LUXURY BRAND" - Solo show at Spectrum Fair / Art Basel Miami 2021 /  by Eric Lee

The show grew from one simple question:
How do I bring these gold coin paintings to life?

This would be my first significant foray into sculpture. It was important to me that each gold coin would feel heavy in the hand, magnetically attracted to one another, stack awkwardly like a cartoon, and be both physical and digital like real money. This quest turned into a 2 year project made possible with the help of my collaborator, sculptor Jonathan Michael Johnson @jmj3

Click the video below to see the making of:

We were able to make 220 gold coins for the 2021 edition.
The next step was to make the coins digital. No small feat, but with a few smart people, we put together a company called Trove ID:
a blockchain platform extending all the benefits of NFTs to physical artwork: an unbroken history of ownership, a marketplace to buy and sell work on the secondary market, and royalties for artists on secondary market sales.

Art Basel seemed the perfect place to unveil this coin project and the Trove blockchain. Spectrum Miami was one of the only fairs at Basel that individual artists were allowed to create and present a show independently. We applied and we were accepted. Now to create an engaging installation for the audience.

Along with the coin sculptures, I wanted to create a new set of coin paintings. Time, money and value are all tightly intertwined. Visions of clocks filled with coins started to pop up in my head.

Multiple clocks hung in a row seemed right. They reminded me of the stock market showing all the time zones for cities across the world. This idea of trading value and money with others across time and space felt like the right environment.

With all this white and yellow, the show really needed a pop of red. I’d been thinking about creating tufted velvet paintings for a long time. Their simplicity and symmetry along with the bold red color exudes an almost religious aura. In an investigation into objects that convey value, the tufted velvet paintings were an important addition to the show.

Tufted Velvet No 1 / 36 x 36 in

Lastly was the safe painting. A safe is a functional object to store one’s valuables. Conceptually I find it a beautiful idea for a painting, as art can also be used as a store of value. With the help of Dana Fisher at Flax Art and Frame, we figured out a new way to hang the painting as close to the wall as possible. This made it feel less like a painting and more like a built-in wall safe.

The show was a hit. All the physical coins sold out quickly, along with the majority of the paintings. I met a number of fascinating people and had days filled with great conversations. It was a rewarding experience and I’m very glad I had the chance to participate in it.

Behind the scenes: "Salvation" Flint MI 2021 /  by Eric Lee

Flint Public Art Project asked me back for a second year. I was surprised too, but turns out they were looking forward to me creating a suffering superhero piece in Flint. How could I say no.
We found a good door for the project and I started creating a few mock ups. I was very drawn to a panel in “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” (from Marvel’s The Amazing Spider-Man #121-122) . Fingers crossed I too could make it amazing.

The simplicity and power of the body language in the panel created an emotional reaction for me. I thought it would be even more stirring if painted human size with a light source.

I was fortunate to be accompanied by my lovely wife Larysa on the trip. When using large stencils it’s ridiculously helpful to have a second set of hands helping to mitigate random gusts of wind. She’s also a fantastic photographer and documented the whole process (these photos were all taken by her). Here’s the final piece:

Working together we finished the piece in one very long day, freeing us up to go paint bricks gold all over town the rest of the week.

Each gold brick is set up with a pixelstix tag so it can be read by a smartphone. There will be discounts and a scavenger hunt using these bricks soon. I’m very excited by all the new possibilities of pairing technology with my art. A lot more of this to come :)
And here’s how it works:

Behind the Scenes: "The Midas touch" Flint MI 2020 /  by Eric Lee

In the fall of 2020, the stars aligned for me to paint a mural in Flint Michigan. A few of the star-aligners were Lindsey and Simone of Beauty & Brawn, and Flint Public Art Project’s Joe Schipani. We started with an exchange of photos depicting possible locations. Out of the options, one building stood out:

It was a big, flat, monochromatic sprawl that had seen better days. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to paint it turning gold. Joe and the building owner were open to the idea and after a couple back and forths, we had our composition and story for the piece.

Time to get started:

A really fun bonus to the week was getting to stay at Joe and Phillip’s house. They were amazing hosts, always kept us fed… and after a long hard day in the sun we’d all hang out on the porch and talk until it was time for bed. The menagerie of animals would come take turns getting pet. Pebbles would curl up in my lap and if I was lucky, Leo would come say hi.

Here are a few pictures of the finished mural “The Midas Touch”.

I’m very drawn to paradoxes. The story of Midas wonderfully illustrates how something can be both a blessing and a curse:

When King Midas was offered a wish as a reward from the god Dionysus, he wished to transform anything he touched to gold.

He touched a twig and rock and both transformed. Excitedly, he hurried around his garden turning every rose gold. Wanting to celebrate, Midas ordered his servants put on a feast. His mood quickly changed as food became inedible in his hands, and attempting to comfort his daughter transformed her into a golden statue.

I got to spend 5 days in Flint and made a handful of new friends. Everyone I met there was open and kind. I'm so grateful for Beauty & Brawn connecting me with Joe Schipani and Flint Public Art Project. I’m proud of the piece we left behind, and looking forward to my next visit. Cheers and thank you to everyone involved!