‘FUN AT THE BEACH’, 2020, Stephen Eric Lee
Referencing Girl with Ball by Roy Lichtenstein, this is a painting about a painting that is no longer there. Created during lockdown when we weren't allowed outside, it recalls the beach of 2020... something that existed in memory alone.
‘FUN AT THE BEACH’, 2020
Spray paint, acrylic, hand cut wood panel / 33”x48”
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Stephen Eric Lee (E.LEE) is an artist and muralist based in Central Illinois. His work probes the very foundations of how we experience art: its emotional pull, its power to confer status, and the curious ways we assign value to it. Through a signature trompe l’oeil technique, he breathes life into flat surfaces — inviting viewers into paradoxes of presence and absence, where the invisible becomes visible, and humor undercuts expectation.
E.LEE creates immersive installations and public murals that spark conversation and delight. Simplification and the viewer’s point of view are his guiding principles: each piece designed to subvert what we think we know, then gently reveal something unexpected.
E.LEE earned his BFA from Millikin University in 2002 and has exhibited in Chicago, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Paris and Brisbane. His murals adorn walls across the United States and around the world—from London, Bristol and Amsterdam to Barcelona, Nagoya and Osaka—each one a playful meditation on space, light and the stories just beneath the surface.