Arts & Leisure Business World
by Jasmine T. Cruz
A BENT CANVAS, paintbrushes sticking out from an artwork, a stuffed turkey, a frame without a canvas, rolled up paintings scattered on the floor — these are some of the curious pieces in It’s All in the Mind, an exhibit of works by Lindsey James “Lindslee” Lee at Galleria Duemila in Pasay City.
“Kapag painting siya, artwork na ba siya? (If it’s a painting, is already art?)” Mr. Lee said in an interview with BusinessWorld on Aug. 8.
“Minsan ang art nasa isip lang (Sometimes art is just in the person’s mind).”
This is why Lindslee experimented with artist’s tools and elements of paintings in order to provoke viewers into thinking more deeply about art.
ANIMALS IN THE EXHIBIT
One of Mr. Lee’s experiments is using taxidermy in his pieces, something he incorporated in his 2008 show Figuring Abstraction at The Drawing Room in Makati City.
Mr. Lee became interested in taxidermy while studying Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas (UST). There he discovered the UST Museum, whose exhibits include a number taxidermied animals, and began asking the museum staff about this technique of preserving animal carcasses. His interest in taxidermy continued while he studied at The Art Students League of New York, where he took up mixed media, drawing, painting, color and composition. While there he frequented taxidermy shops and talked to the shopkeepers about their craft.
The animals in his works symbolize people, Mr. Lee told BusinessWorld, and this is true for his piece Ignorant Critic, which features a stuffed goat who just bit off the grassy portion of a painted landscape.
“May pumuntang isang walang alam sa art. Sinabi ng iba famous ’yung gumawa, tapos biglang nag-iiba perception ng tao (A person who doesn’t know anything about art went [to the art exhibit]. Someone told that person that the painting was made by someone famous, and that person’s perception [of the painting] changed),” he said, explaining the narrative behind his piece.
“Sa sobrang ganda ng painting, akala ng kambing totoo, so kinain niya (The painting was so well made that the goat thought it was real, so he ate it),” Mr. Lee added.
Then there is the “art” that Mr. Lee talked about chancing upon on the street. “Naglalakad ka lang tapos nakakita ka ng dumi sa pader (You are just walking along when you see dirt on a wall),” he said. “Gustong-gusto mo ’yung dumi. Na-move ka, so art na ’yun para sa iyo. (You really like the dirt. You are moved, so that is art for you.)”