Born in 1980, Francis Lee hails from the quaint little town of Taiping, is one of the re-emerging watercolorists after 16 years of hiatus. Francis has never ceased to develop and experiment his art, as it evolves from classic impressionism to abstract painting. His style changes through the years with the latest unusual approach of incorporating ‘water bloom’ to achieve highlights. He covers a variety of subjects but mostly on landscape and urbanscape.
How did you start doing it?
I stopped painting about 16 years ago after the last group exhibition in 2004 due to day job
commitment. The idea of painting resurfaced last year after a friend of mine, pestered me to paint
again. It was not an easy task, after all I have been hiatus for so long. I need to reconcile whatever I
learnt in the past and put into action again. Covid-19 pandemic encroached into my country and we had movement control enforced. Nothing else we can do except stay at home, and that was the moment I was on steroid. I paint every day, one painting a day sometimes up to three.
What is the thing that inspires you to do it?
I have to be blatantly honest with you – the Youtube! It was so resourceful and I just can’t stop
digging for more videos until I realized that instead on lying on couch, I better get my hand dancing
with the brush. I wasted 16 years of not doing what I love most!
What’s the most challenging thing you've had to face so far?
As a re-emerging artist, there were so much to catch up. The development of watercolor has gone so
far, from technique, subject matter and many more. In the past I paint still life and landscape.
Nowadays peoples love urbanscape, semi-abstract and pop art. All these are not new to me but is an
arena that I am not familiar with.
What's a piece of advice you can give to others?
Don’t waste your time. Do whatever inspires you. To excel, work hard on it. You don’t have to be the
best but you need to be good at it. There is no best artist in the world. Art is too speculative for the
crown.
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