Human Gestures: Art by Scott Lee
Currently based in Denver, Colorado, Scott Lee is an artist who works to capture a sense of narrative and emotion in simple human gestures. The artist’s currently portfolio is especially focused on dignified portrayals of poor and homeless people.
I’m quite impressed by the works in Scott’s gallery of charcoal portraits. The subjects in this gallery are mostly elderly and identified by the artist as homeless, though the viewer isn’t given much concrete information about the subject. This sense of mystery serves to enforce the importance of what the artist has chosen to portray. The portraits offer a jarring close-up of marginalized faces, with backgrounds totally blacked out as if to further encourage a viewing dialogue with the face of the subject.
The front page of Scott's art website
These works sit in something of a contrast to the rest of Scott’s portfolio, where equal attention is paid to the settings and backgrounds. I find the artist’s photographs interesting – unlike many photographers, Scott doesn’t seek to capture the reality of a scene, but instead fabricates his own circumstances from memory, creating a vibrant, almost surreal photographic plane.
