Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

MOCA Studio presents Perseverance – No Limitation: Solo Exhibition of Leland Lee shortly before this year’s Mother’s Day. It is the starting point for the international touring exhibition of Leland Lee’s new works. The planning of this exhibition aims to reflect how the contemporary art field has returned to a contemplation on the core subject and represented an artistic vision deeply rooted in one’s individual life and original intention. Through proposing refreshing values different from a secular, worldly perspective, the exhibition reveals a possible, noteworthy way of thinking and practice from concentrating on the creation of personal aesthetics to its communication to the society. It is hoped that the innocence and brilliance of Lee’s work can imbue the disorderly world with a sense of beauty and peaceful images and provide comforting and cheering power to alleviate the suffering of the world. Lee’s work combines rich life experiences and boundless imagination in a carefree manner, transforming the chaotic, complex reality into colorful visual representations with a distinctive style. In addition to showcasing Lee’s first attempt in making a long-scroll painting series, some of the works in the exhibition also incorporate digital interactive mechanism. This approach reconfigures the reading of the still, two-dimensional, finished works into a dynamic, spatial, and on-going perceptive experience. The artistic context of Perseverance – No Limitation originates from the artist’s present, personal, everyday life. However, Lee guides his audience to calmly and positively revisit all kinds of social and cultural issues introduced by the contemporary society. The painted cityscape, people, and animals are in bold and unpretentious colors such as orange, red, emerald green, bright yellow, royal blue, etc., interspersed with gold paint and silver powder. The use of prismatic colors, integrated with free-flowing, confident forms in black lines, delineates the agreeable, harmonious world that stands out from the tumultuous reality in people’s eyes. Leland Lee was born in Los Angeles in 1989. He was diagnosed of autism when he was one and a half years old. At the age of eight, he has showed unique talents in arts. With the full-time care and dedicated efforts of his mother, Ms. Karen Chien, Lee created a special way of communicating with the world through the act of painting and his works. He has been painting persistently ever since, making his voice heard with the paint brush and conveying the life he has experienced. Lee’s maternal grandfather, Mr. Archiybold Chien, is the founder of the renowned cultural site, Astoria Café, and has been deeply involved with the Taiwanese cultural circle. After returning and settling down in Taiwan, Lee’s mother has been managing the café. Apart from making art, Lee has also designed a series of merchandise packaging for the café, too. From being an infant that was afraid of having water on his face, Lee is now a professional, competitive long-distance swimmer; from being a child that was potentially physically out-of-balance and might never walk, Lee has become a youth fond of horse riding and skiing; from being a possible uncommunicative autistic individual, Lee has found a way to connect and share unending artistic beauty with the world through painting. Today, his multiple talents, including design and music, shine through all corners of the world and are widely acknowledged. We finally understand that his divinely inspired, home-schooled talents are the illuminating key to awake our collective artistic vision and aesthetic perception.