Artwork
First Touch
Artist
Paul Lee
(British, born 1974)
DepartmentContemporary Art
Date2016
Dimensionsh. 20 in. (50.8 cm)
w. 20 in. (50.8 cm)
d. 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm)
w. 20 in. (50.8 cm)
d. 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm)
Credit LineSan Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Brown Foundation Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund
Object number2016.22.2
Copyright© Paul Lee
DescriptionA square canvas arranged side-by-side with a tambourine, below which is another square canvas. The ground of each support is white with geometric forms in one quadrant—pale pink squares on the canvases and a beige triangle on the tambourine—that meet in the center of the overall composition.Label TextPaul Lee is a poet….it’s post-technological, it’s not of this world, though he’s thinking intensely about it.
—Eileen Myles, American poet and writer
Elegantly joined canvases and a tambourine conflate skin, surface, and intimacy while slightly varied canvas depths and shapes quietly activate the space around this work. Informed by major artistic achievements in the twentieth century—such as Josef Albers’s studies in perception through simple usages of line, form, and color—Lee’s subtle, seemingly simple work speaks to unspoken poetic and romantic narratives of relationships and the human touch. With First Touch, a meditation of the space between the material and immaterial, the real and imagined, desire and longing becomes achingly present.
(Suzanne Weaver, 2019)SignedSigned, titled, and dated on versoNot on view
Collections
Terry Dhurritjini Yumbulul
Culture: Indigenous Australians (Warramiri language group)
2007
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
