"Day 145" drawing/painting by Wes Lee

 Weston Lee grew up in Norco, a previously small town in southern California. In college he studied art at Sonoma State University and at Cal State University, Fullerton, earning a B.A. in Art at Fullerton with an emphasis in drawing and painting. Recently, he returned to school and completed his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nevada, Reno graduating in 2021. Lee was the recipient of the Graduate Dean’s Merit Scholarship Award at the University of Nevada, Reno in 2018, the Frances S. Gignoux Liberal Art Scholarship in 2019 and the Sierra Arts Endowment Grant from Sierra Arts Foundation, Reno in 2006.

In creating his art, his process of working involves responding to initial marks and abstract shapes rather than starting with a set plan, allowing the making of his compositions to be a process of discovery and exploration as he creates imaginary spaces inspired by nature’s organic forms, textures, and interwoven connections. 

He dreams in downtown Reno, Nevada in his live/work studio next to the Truckee River.

ARTIST STATEMENT

When I’m not here, I’m over there, or halfway in between.

I wander between the real and the fictional. Between the representational and the abstract.
Sometimes becoming lost in the moment, or lost in thoughts of the past, or imaginings of the present, trekking about in fictional realities. Drifting, like clouds and whales and distant friendships, dreaming.

My drawings become records, artifacts of wandering.