rob oskar lee...
sculptures, constructions, reliefs, film props
Press
Naked
Reviewed by Oona Strathern
If it is just the title of Crucial’s latest show that leads you there, you may well be surprised but you certainly won’t be disappointed.
‘Naked’ is the provocative title of a show of Rob Lee’s sculpture. Lee is essentially a magpie. He collects objects with no apparent relation to one another — they may be strange or everyday, bright or dull, man-made or natural. He then combines the vices and virtues of these objects, be they driftwood, dolls, telephones, or feathers, to create magnificent sculptural collages. The whole is always greater than the sum of the parts, and each piece a symbolic gesture.
Endangered Species, made of so called ‘mixed media’, is a creature with a cleverly chosen bit of wood for a head, a headlamp for a snout, and a long mane that on closer inspection reveals itself to be as an army of plastic toy soldiers. Lee’s symbolism takes many forms, but is commonly related to themes of consumerism, anti-war feeling, and the origin of man. The elements of irony and fun in his work come across in a second wave. It is the tortured and disturbing elements that hit you first. The Scream (after Munch), is a bust surrounded by nails and chains, and mounted as you would a moose. The cavernous mouth conveys a terrible ‘electrifying’ scream, and the hair which appears to stand on end, is a bright tangle of cable wires.
It is an overwhelming and exciting show, and Lee, in anticipation of the effect it would have on people, has thoughtfully left his sturdy cocktail stools made of car gearboxes with a comfy pad placed on top, lying strategically around the gallery.
"To say that Rob Lee possesses a magpie mind may be stating the obvious. But how else do you describe someone who collects, selects, rejects and creates such inspirational and surprising pieces.
Shock is not Lee’s tactic. He is not interested in the short-lived, maxi-hyped world of certain media touted ‘visionaries’. What he is keen to convey is a much broader, more exciting and ultimately richer experience of weaving elements together, be they plastic tubes, salvaged wood, a child’s plaything or urban flotsam.
There are no hard and fast rules in Lee’s world. All possibilities are open to him. Yet, through the seeming clutter and debris of the pieces, a memorable signature emerges which is undeniably and unmistakably his own.
His work harnesses the tragic, the dramatic, the affectionate and the unashamedly comic. Art is serious but it is also fun and Lee never forgets that." — ROBIN DUTT
"I normally only peer through art gallery windows on my way to the local, but the work of sculptor Rob Lee exhibited at the Crucial Gallery, really grabbed me. He works with salvaged wood, glass fibre, plastic tubes and hundreds of tiny figures — amazing what you can do with old toys, some Superglue and a bit of imagination." – JONATHAN ROSS
"Bottle tops, electric flex, computer chips, motors and plastic dentures. Hmm, not exactly ideal sculpting materials. but in the hands of the Sussex-based artist Rob Lee, they are glued and riveted into the most extraordinary structures and invested with an uncannily mechanical life force that makes you wonder if they might not accompany you around the exhibition.
Lee reckons his interest in all things technological and mechanised was sparked off by a near fatal accident which left him suddenly captivated by the manufactured bric-a-brac that most of us toss into our dustbins. Thankfully, his career has been anything but rubbish, with his works finding their way into the collections of celebs like Princess Gloria Von Thurn and Prince. The human form is the basic building block, although this exhibition offers everything from life-size busts and doll-like miniature robotic bodies to heavy-duty wall-hung constructions that feature globes and bird’s wings. Some pieces, like the PulsingBrain bust, are motorised, bathed in phosphorescent light while a dark blob of a brain throbs in a slow and sinister rhythm. In his Last Supper, the eyes truly become the windows of the soul as you look inside the metal head to see chemical warfare soldiers, a cow and a pink doll dancing some strange sadistic ritual.
The idea is an old one: turning everyday waste into beautiful, kooky sculptures, but Lee’s inventive use of his bits and bobs – multi-coloured flex becomes dreadlocks, a meat grinder becomes a skull – and attention to detail make his figures intriguingly eye-catching. And lots of fun." — DANNY SCOTT