Ameringer McEnery Yohe is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent drawings by Patrick Lee. The exhibition will open 25 April and will remain on view through 25 May 2013. A public reception for the artist will take place 25 April between 6:00 and 8:00 PM.

The subjects portrayed in Patrick Lee’s graphite drawings are threatening and aggressive in appearance. The artist approaches these men on the streets of Southern California and photographs them as studies for his drawings. This dialogue and interaction is an essential part of his process.

Hand drawn and resolved over many months, the artist diligently – even scientifically – renders muscles, pores, scars, tattoos, and facial hair in painstakingly accurate photorealistic detail.

Lee opens an inquisitive dialogue with the hyper-masculine visages of these men, studying behavioral patterns and intricate symbols of identity, and exploring the ways that these men communicate and amplify their projected self-images, the armor that protects and codifies them on the street, in their gangs, and in prison. The subjects are individuals with pride, stoicism, strength, and hostility, but Lee focuses his attention on their gaze and expression, moving beyond their often forbidding physical exteriors to expose their humanity, revealing their underlying light, warmth, and vulnerability. Lee’s devotion to the observable world and to human sentiments is manifoldly evident in his work. The artist is able to make these men – reticent in the real world – approachable to the viewer in a way that is daringly captivating. Moving beyond the hostility the subjects might project in real life, Lee gives the viewer a moment, undeterred by fear, to witness, contemplate, and relate with the subjects over the common truth of projected and perceived identities.

Patrick Lee was born in 1969 in Butte, Montana, and he graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design in 1988. Lee is the recipient of the 2006 Peter S. Reed Foundation Achievement Award, as well as the Nikon 2000 Grand Prize.

Lee has had numerous national and international exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include such venues as Western Project, Los Angeles, CA, and Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY. Recent group exhibitions include Drawing for the New Century, Minneapolis Insitute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; B-B-B-BAD…an exhibition with attitudes, Anna Kustera Gallery, New York, NY; Male, Maureen Paley Gallery, London, UK, curated by Vince Aletti; Do I Know You, Inman Gallery, Houston, TX; Lush Life, Salon 94 Freemans, New York, NY; and Cherry Pie, Western Project, Los Angeles, CA. His work may be found in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX.

Patrick Lee lives and works in Los Angeles.