Timothy Hon Hung Lee, Of a thousand tears, Of a thousand songs. Ink on calligraphy paper, 38 cm x 30 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
My recent body of work is somewhat of an epiphany to me; before these drawings I had taken an unconscious hiatus from drawing for four years. It wasn’t until I worked on the artwork for Lesser Panda (London gothic dance act) that I picked up the pencil again and rekindled everything I love about image making.
Prior to this, I had been learning to make digital work, but I was never truly happy with the outcome. My digital work is easy on the eye but never struck the chord in my heart. At times I felt I was cheating in a sense. Errors are easily corrected, and an almost limitless color palette made decision making too easy. It drained the challenge of art.
There is a completely different feeling when you draw. Late at night, yourself and a sheet of paper. I have said before that I feel “human” when this occurs, and it’s still true. Nothing is forcing me to draw; it is intuitive and natural.
For my work to be considered a success in my eyes, it must carry my thoughts and sentiments at the time. The images I’m particularly fond of are those that reflect myself. I would say my work is like a visual diary. Along with rhythm and composition, the pace of the work is paramount. I believe that effective art should hold your attention and then slowly seep into you. I admire work that is craft-laden and, in turn, elevates itself into art.
There are themes that bind my work together. Initially I wasn’t aware that I was addressing these topics; though the more I created, the more the pattern arose. Violence, romance, and mortality, these are the principals. I think they bleed into one another to suggest a love for tragedy. This is mimicked in the films, books, and the art I favor. The marriage of theme and execution produces something I term as slow violence, or an aching violence. The most direct way I can put it is that the idea of violence has a furnace-like pace; I try to retain the essence of it whilst reducing the perception to a flame.
I hope people can see the beauty in the simplicity of my acts. Regardless to what is shown in the piece, that they can admire the way I have decorated and celebrated what it is to be human.
