David Choong Lee

David Choong Lee is a Korean artist who currently resides in San Francisco. He mainly focuses on portraiture based on the people that surround him. Most of his work tends to have an urban feel to it and he paints people of many different races. This is one of the reasons that I find him and his work so interesting. When I first saw his work a few years ago in San Francisco, I would have never guessed that a Korean artist living in America painted them. Even though he is very aware of the events going on in his country, they do not become the main focus of his work. He has been able to completely take in his surroundings and translate them through his work.
One of my professors once told me that I needed to experiment in picking the models that I chose to paint. He asked me if Hispanic males that were near my age always surrounded me. I thought about this for a while and realized that my life was a bit more complex then that. Now I have been experimenting with people of different races and skin colors and it has made my work more exiting to me. It has been a challenge working with different colors combinations but enjoying at the same time because I am exploring new things through my paint. I am learning to be more aware of my surroundings and understanding why I choose to paint certain things. This will allow me to better relate to my work and make it easier to explain my paintings to others.