Unabstraction

In Portraiture, Donald Lee introduces dots or eyes into his invented abstract characters. With this minimal intervention, forms that initially appear non-representational begin to suggest faces, figures and personalities.

The underlying characters remain abstract; very little is changed. Yet once two points are perceived as eyes, the surrounding lines are instinctively reorganized by the viewer into something bodily or human. A curve may become a head, an enclosure a face, and an arrangement of strokes a gesture or posture.

Unabstraction explores this unstable threshold between abstraction and representation—how little is required for an abstract form to acquire presence, identity and the suggestion of a portrait.