Jivan Lee, "Weathervane," 2020

JIVAN LEE

January 6 - 18, 2020 Scottsdale Artist Reception | Thursday, January 16 | 6:30 – 9:00pm

JIVAN LEE Weathervane

Jackson Hole | Scottsdale | AltamiraArt.com

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Fall Snow Oil on canvas | 36 x 54 inches Enquire

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Jivan Lee To mark his birthday, Jivan Lee makes a painting. This year’s, “Thirty Five (Storm Over the Mountain),” found him feverishly working en plein air, racing to capture the ominous momentum of a storm swelling over Taos Mountain. As such, a “terrible awe” pervades the painting, a dramatic threshold filled with fierce beauty. “In person, on location, I was close enough to feel how powerful the storm was,” Lee says. “There was a sense of the atmosphere falling down onto the earth, a sense of density. The clouds were so ferocious.”

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The scene represented a shift for the oil painter, away from exploring conceptual frontiers, toward a state of dwelling within this terrain. “I have pushed into a number of places that I need to inhabit for a while. I wanted to spend more time with the elements, being in the elements.”

The resulting work pulses with physical presence, compositions that could only come about from lived experience. This arterial insight drew Lee to reconsider “weathervane” according to its homonym, “weather vein.” Thus titled, the series seems to take the pulse of the weather, bearing witness to singular conditions both mighty and subtle. Like opening his front door to the anomaly of freezing fog, a grainy skim surrounding his home. Or the serenity of seeing snow settle atop fall foliage, a rare glimpse of seasonal cusp.

“In this particular show, I am stepping away from conceptual effort to focus on moments where the link is being in weather while it develops and saturates and encompasses one in the landscape.”

As a whole, the show spins like a weathervane, pointing at different natural episodes, different faces of weather’s personality. As the compass moves, the axis remains resolute—a metaphor for Lee’s labor as an artist, his continual experimentation with visual elements: tonality, palette, composition, abstraction and resolution. Natural flux grounded in artistic exploration.

“My painting practice serves as the center point as I go around and try and compile this series of unusual moments in weather.”

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Thirty Five- Storm Over the Mountain Oil on linen | 50 x 74 inches Enquire

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Monument #12 - Soft Clouds and Bright Light Oil on canvas | 40 x 30 inches Enquire

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Last Thoughts with the Setting Sun Oil on canvas | 24 x 48 inches Enquire

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Sunset Ridgeline 1 Oil on canvas | 16 x 12 inches Enquire

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Sunset Ridgeline 2 Oil on canvas | 16 x 12 inches Sunset Ridgeline 3 Oil on canvas | 16 x 12 inches Enquire

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Sunrise Fog Oil on canvas | 16 x 12 inches Enquire

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Morning Field Oil | 12 x 12 inches Enquire

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Quartzite #1 Oil | 40 x 30 inches Enquire

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Big Snow Oil on canvas | 48 x 96 inches Enquire

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Freezing Fog Oil on canvas | 36 x 48 inches Enquire

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Monument # 14, Storms Go Oil on panel | 20 x 16 inches Enquire

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Monument #13, Storms Come Oil on panel | 20 x 16 inches Enquire

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Quartzite #2 Oil | 48 x 48 inches Enquire

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17038 E. Main Street | Scottsdale, AZ 85251 AltamiraArt.com | 480-949-1256