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Mike Lee’s Latest Graphite Drawings of Miniature Urban Places

New York based artist Mike Lee draws tiny, typical urban places that seem to float in negative space. We previously covered his graphite drawings here, mostly portraying an aerial view of a dollhouse-like world. Lee's latest series, currently on view at Giant Robot's GR gallery in Los Angeles, pushes the peculiarity of his artworks a little bit further. They still contain simplified spaces populated by chubby Lego-like urbanites, but have been spliced up to a more abstract effect.

New York based artist Mike Lee draws tiny, typical urban places that seem to float in negative space. We previously covered his graphite drawings here, mostly portraying an aerial view of a dollhouse-like world. Lee’s latest series, currently on view at Giant Robot’s GR gallery in Los Angeles, pushes the peculiarity of his artworks a little bit further. They still contain simplified spaces populated by chubby Lego-like urbanites, but have been spliced up to a more abstract effect. There are fantasized reimaginings of actual street corners, homes, and coffee shops that Lee visits in his every day life, like “37 N Broadway” or “W 218th St,” as well as still life of house plants and other objects. Of his new works, Lee says, “I opened up walls, rotated sidewalks, dissected objects and really tried to dramatize the lighting. I also wanted to push the contrast between the simple and the complex by controlling the amount of detail.”

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