
Jason Matthew Lee
xx28, 2015
Digital print on canvas
200 x 150 cm
78 3/4 x 59 1/8 in
78 3/4 x 59 1/8 in
Copyright The Artist
Jason Matthew Lee’s canvases 'XX14' (2015) and 'XX28' (2015) deal with abstraction via digital processing of images and text. Lee uses both analog and digital source materials for his works....
Jason Matthew Lee’s canvases 'XX14' (2015) and 'XX28' (2015) deal with abstraction via digital processing of images and text. Lee uses both analog and digital source materials for his works. The base layers of the works, and some of the subsequent visuals, are sourced from advertisements placed by digital companies in the first issue of Wired Magazine (January 1993). Many of these companies are now obsolete, due to technological advancements; slicing and distorting typographic data from the advertisements Lee references a history of technology and how humans have interacted with it. Despite being digitally manipulated images, the canvases also reference Lee’s physical studio output – they are smudged with metal dust from his welded payphones, and layered with scanned, distorted images of cords from a computer scanner. As well as building up multiple layers in his images digitally in Photoshop, Lee also digitally prints the canvases in multiple layers. As information is iterated into his works, the layering and density obscures relationships between output and source. The ‘paintings’ aim to describe all of the anxiety and confusion surrounding densely layered networks, but interact with technology in a way that feels human, personal, and dirty.