jlee

I’m an illustrator, artist and musician. I’ve been drawing my whole life and my drawings over the years have been used for gig posters and album covers, as well as illustration and comics for editorial and publishing. I’m presently working towards several upcoming gallery shows in 2011. I was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My biggest influence as a kid was watching cartoons on TV. When I was 13 my family moved to Hong Kong where I got really into skateboarding, punk rock, grafitti, and other rebel stuff. After high school I went to the Alberta College of Art where I took painting, printmaking and eventually got into video art. I finished my BFA at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. Over the years I’ve had all sorts of jobs, from doing visual effects to building furniture. During a time in my life when I was predominantly playing music, making records, and touring North America and Europe, I started to miss making visual art so I picked up a sketchbook and started drawing again. This lead to being handed the reigns on designing posters, t-shirts and album covers for the bands I was in, which in turn lead to other bands and labels requesting the same. Like my taste in music, the work I find myself referencing is vintage 60’s – 70’s. I really liked touring but it became harder to do after I got married. My wife and I moved to Brooklyn, NY around 2008 where I attended the School of Visual Arts for a summer, worked in Art Direction and built sets and shapes for fashion editorial and retail display. I’m currently back living in East Vancouver, still playing in bands, and working on a book of black and white drawings for Karmazots Press.