Artist Statement:

 

America, the civilization, is a production-based industrial event, and not one of documents, ideals or civil revolution. My interest lies in the forging of the American character as indivisible from that of the mill, shipyard, or mine. The factory is to America as the cathedral is to Europe and for much the same reasons. The relics of our industrial past are the palpable remains of our temperament, voracity and prodigy.

My paintings explore this inheritance as found throughout the rust belt region of the Great Lakes basin where the effects of mechanization were most starkly realized. Often shown in isolation, I choose megalithic structures as archetypal portraits of the American character as ravenous, individualistic and estranged from history. I scar, detonate and afflict my canvases as a reenactment and portrayal of a brief, but volcanic era that defined itself through labor.

 

- Eric Lee