Page 65, My Name Is Fire: The Art of Lee Joo For (Exhibition: Lee Joo For, The Art Gallery Penang 1999)
Provenance
Private collection, Penang
Acquired directly from the artist
Literature
Lee Joo For Retrospective (Cover essay by Ooi Kok Chuen) (Exhibition: The Penang State Art Gallery, November 2008
My Name Is Fire: The Art of Lee Joo For (Exhibition: Lee Joo For, The Art Gallery Penang 1999)
A Tribute to Lee Joo For (Exhibition: Art Salon @ SENI, September to November 2009)
Description
Painter, playwright, producer (of drama/musicals), and printmaker John Lee Joo For was highly praised for his graphic works in the 1960s by his peers. This work, created during John Lee’s studies at the Royal Academy in South Kensington, London, is full of aggravation, frustration, and depression, as can be seen in the spitting words: Hate, Lonely, Love, Fear. All copies of this work have been sold. The work was way ahead of its time for its brutal directness and graphic nature. In an email response about this piece, John Lee said it was one of his favorite works, noting, “No other artworks of mine resemble or repeat it.”