Lee Barber is a visual artist and songwriter living and working in Austin, Texas. Born and raised in South Louisiana, within smelling distance of the Mississippi, he was the dreamy kid who got lost on the way home from school. When he came to art-making as an adult, he became lost again, responding to the contemplative invitations of painting, the physical imprint, the lure of color, and the potential for storytelling.
My Work: I create figures in landscapes using a language similar to dreams. I’m telling tall tales. I'll make the hand a deep blue or the sky an acid orange to dislodge it from the static, to animate both the physical and psychological. I’m telling lies in an attempt to document something that is unknowable. It’s an ill-fated exercise but, in the end, I want to present an organized system that rubs up against our daily experience of strangeness and wonder.
My Process: Beginning with clouds of charcoal dust on panel, I look for hints of images and stories that I can pull out and refine. In this way, I’m running interference with the logical mind, entering through a side door. It’s not that I don’t trust the logical mind, only that it feels incomplete.
