Jonathan Lee is an artist and librarian based in Richmond, Virginia. His studio practice explores ephemeral memory, secret histories, and social constructions; often through abstracting activated materials. His social practice utilizes multi-modal approaches to engage individuals, small groups, and communities with ideas, and one another, through discussion, art making, and display. His work has been exhibited at Piedmont Arts, Quirk, the Taubman Museum of Art, Virginia MOCA, the Harnett Museum of Art, Swope Art Museum, Washington and Lee University, Roanoke College, Christopher Newport University, George Mason University, and various other galleries/institutions nationwide. It can also be found in various public and private collections around the globe. Lee has an MLIS from Wayne State University and is currently a lecturer at Old Dominion University. For a current CV, images of his work, and much more; visit his website: jleerva.com

Statement courtesy of the artist:

These 4 pieces are a part of a body of work that uses stories from antiquity to reflect on how things both change and remain. The contemporary and historic are always in dialogue with one another. The bittersweet of nostalgia and the longing for something new, interwoven to form the tapestry of our existence. How we remember and respond to the past, in the present, shapes our future. All Western Civilizations share similar Greco-Roman systemic and ideological roots. What differentiates these empires from one another is what came out of multicultural, intercultural, or cross-cultural contact and exchanges. Gifts from the soul like art, food, fashion, and music have the uncanny ability to tell stories, convey emotions, and connect people across countries, cultures, politics, and languages, even the expanse of time. These gifts both provide comfort and reveal truth in the face of power.

Back in 2019, I started collecting cheap, free, or discarded albums from record shops, thrift stores, and yard sales, turning them into triangular fragments and sorting them by color and content. Of everything collected, I was most drawn to the pieces that featured flowing, patterned, or bunched fabrics from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, separated from the bodies they adored. Then came the pandemic, followed by the election, civil unrest, general instability, and a greater fear of the unknown. Early on, slowed by the weight of it all, I found listening to The Supremes while getting started in the studio helped alter my mindset. Diana Ross’ voice, a warm mix of sad and hopeful, ended up an ideal muse with many of the fragments I'd collected coming from her solo albums. As I worked, I found the combinations were wild, earthy, and intertwined, invoking the huntress. Diana. Roman goddess of the hunt, wilderness, fertility, childbirth, and more. A truly powerful polymorph whose story and character are so complex, so ingrained, that she just kept evolving through neopagan religions and into the modern day. There’s a lot of strength and vulnerability in these pieces, full of the same complexity personified by their namesakes and the cultures that preserved them. They’re fluid, continuously transforming through variations in color and pattern. Each piece presents a unique character, even though they were built from similar pieces. Diana was polyonomous, meaning the goddess had many names. Luna and Lucina were lesser used names with more fragile connections, so the smaller proportions in relation to Diana are appropriate. Artume was an Etruscan goddess first absorbed and replaced by Artemis, who was later absorbed and replaced herself by Diana. Unlike the others, this piece is a single unified layer to signify this unification.