Introduction:
Art has been defined over and
over throughout history. Sometimes it is defined as something created out of self expression and other times it is created
for a specific use. One of history's greatest artists in the 20th century was Salvador Dali. Dali's goal as an artist
was "to bring the world of dreams, visions, and hypnologic imagery to tangible, concrete reality." Dali created
art based on the physical and emotional wars inside of him by using symbols for both internal and external corruption and
destruction. These corruption is from his troubled mind and the destruction from the outraged wars that scarred his home country
of Spain. Another more recent artist of the 21st century, Seexeng Lee also creates meaningful and intentional artwork. Lee's
goal was to create art by "making the invisible visible using the elements and principles of designs with a clear intent."
He creates art based upon the American Dream. It was the American Dream of rags to riches and to live prosperously that brought
him to America. Because of the uncertainty of who he was due to the clashes of the two worlds, Lee retraced his past and eventually
came to realize that living in two cultures is not a burden, but is instead a gift. This discovery greatly influenced Lee,
causing him to use cultural symbols to represent how much he cares and embraces his dual cultural heritage. Whatever methods
and symbols that both Salvador Dali and Seexeng Lee used and use, their art pieces echo one theme: identity.
Artist Salvador Dali:
Identity Development in Dali
Some of the events and ideas that influenced Dali's inner identity occurred even
before he was born. Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech was born on May 11,1904 in the town of Figueres, Spain. His father,
Salvador Dali I Cusi was a notary and his wife, Felipa Domenech Ferres was a dedicated Catholic who encouraged Dali's
artistic skills. When Dali was five years old, he was taken to his older brother's grave. His older brother had died nine
months before Dali's birth, and there his parents told him that he was his brother's reincarnation. Dali quickly came
to the conclusion that his parent's love was for his older brother and not for him. It must have been great challenge
growing up in the shadow, whether real or imagined, of an older brother who did not even exist. More importantly Dali questioned
his parent's affection.
Although he was quite talented, he was
not well liked because he often attacked other students. By junior high, he dressed and acted in bizarre ways which made him
stand out from the others. After Dali turned 16, his mother had become quite ill and soon passed away. Just four years later,
his father married Dali's mother's sister. Dali never accepted this act by his father and viewed the marriage as a
betrayal. Dali captured this sense of betrayal in art with the story of William Tell.
Dali's Art and Complex Emotional Representations
The painting of
William Tell was created from Dali's complex feelings toward his father. Dali's feeling for his father varied from
love and admiration to anger and resentment. In Dali's "The Enigma of William Tell" of 1933, (Figure 1) there
is a man with in the middle of the piece, and can be interpreted to represent Dali's father because around this time he
had the most resentment toward his father. During this time of Dali's life, his father has just announced Dali's banishment
from the rest of the family because he had spat on his mother's portrait without reasoning. The feeling of being terrified
of the figure is evidently present in this piece.
Initially in "The
Enigma of William Tell", the viewer's impression is that the piece is calm and created by the use of horizontal lines.
However, this piece is really distracting because of the extended left buttock. In the background of the right side, one can
see birds flying around; however the birds are really tiny. The birds may represent Dali's self and his desire to make
his own decisions. These emotions contribute to that Dali felt his father had a lot of control over everything that happened
in the family. On the opposite side, there is a melted clock on the book step. The melted clock is a famous motif throughout
Dali's work. In this piece, the clock symbolized the idea that his father would never change. As the viewer's eyes
travel up the piece, they may become paranoid when they meet the figure's face. It looks like the figure's face is
smiling and in its fist holds something like raw meat. This raw meat also appears on its buttock and thus, brings forth really
disturbing feelings for the viewers. His relationship with his father is also shown as fragile as Dali's crutches are
seen as holding up the figure's hat and buttock and crutches are visual metaphors for emotional support.
Psychological challenges continued to bombard a maturing Dali. In 1922, Dali was enrolled
in Madrid School of Fine Art and met two lifelong friends; future film maker Luis Bunuel and poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Adding
fuel to Dali's already strong inner turmoil, Lorca eventually made it clear that he wanted more than a friendship with
Dali; he sought a romantic relationship. This sexual tension may have given rise to some of Dali's obsession with ideas
of castration and other strong sexual images. While his inner conflict continued, Dali's artistic style and expression
of identity developed. His paintings During his adult years, Dali had no problem with his imagination and creating art, however
he often felt lonely and longed for a woman.
Dali's Search
for Love and Acceptance
The one woman who was able to help keep Dali's inner demons in check while allowing
his artistic imagination to flourish was a woman named Gala. In fact it is no overstatement to write that Dali's life
turned around in 1929, when he first met Helena Devuline Diakonoff whom everyone call her: Gala . When Gala came into Dali's
life, she became the framework and structure that Dali needed to help him grow as an artist. She was a great inspiration to
him that her portrait often appears in Dali's mature pieces.
The
Spanish War (1936-1939)
As Dali resolved some of his emotional wars, another war approached. This time, it was
the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Dali and Gala fled to Italy and in 1936, Dali created "Autumn Cannibalism" which
reflected his views on the Civil War. In "Autumn Cannibalism" (Figure 2), the figures that are upfront look like
melting ice cream, being scooped and poked by spoons and forks. These utensils represent weapons. Dali is intentionally depicting
an entwined couple eating each other.
In Swinglehurst's book,
he wrote, "Civil War, with families fighting against families, struck Dali as a form of cannibalism." Civil war
is like man eating man and family hurting family. To Dali, ants also meant destruction, and thus he placed ants in the civil
war image. The crutches also appear, holding up the figures as they are falling upon each other. Looking at this picture,
Dali seems to be raising a question for the viewer, after all this destruction can relationships be mended?
Searching
for Identity in the Surreal World
Last but not least, Dali's "Sleep"
(Figure 3) in 1937 can sum up who Dali really is. In this piece, a huge face fills up the piece, stuck right in the middle.
The background is blue and the figure is seen sleeping with tiny crutches holding it up in the air. The small blanket is significant
because it symbolizes the idea of wanting comfort. Although the picture is serene, it is disturbing by the fact that the whole
figure is only of a head. Dali stated that "I have often imagined the monster of sleep as a heavy, giant head with a
tapering body held up by the crutches of reality. When the crutches break we have the sensation of falling." And as can
be seen, the crutches are the only thing supporting this huge figure. The crutches are also really thin, suggesting they may
break at any second. This can represents how Dali felt with life and with the wars happening inside and outside of him; that
it will kill him in any second.
Sleep has been one of Dali's
most successful pieces in terms of making the viewer acknowledge the fact that sleeping is fragile, and as Edmund wrote, "Sleep
was an important part of life for Dali: it not only induced a forgetfulness of the unpleasant side of life but it also shows
the realm of the unconscious in which dwelt the paranoid fantasies which were also hidden realities." The work was based
on theories of the sub-conscious mind, which were only developed recently by Sigmund Freud. In 1984 as Dali went to sleep,
his bed accidentally caught on fire and he was badly burned. He never recovered from it as he died years later on January
23, 1989.
Artist Seexeng Lee:
Lee and His Personal Struggles
Unlike Dali, who used art to share his own personal pain and emotional struggles
as well as to capture the struggles in society, artist Seexeng Lee sees art as a way of celebrating his heritage and commenting
on both the challenges and benefits that cultural diversity brings. Seexeng Lee was born on September 9, 1975 in the mountains
of Laos. Unlike Dali, Lee knew he was loved by his parents. He especially felt love and dedication from his father. This love
he has with his father was quite apparent and one can say that it was the most important thing that triggered Lee's love
for the arts. Lee said, "Art was the only way I knew how to conceive images and meanings. I found peace when I physically
produced visual images to each of my father's stories."
At the age of nine, Lee was forced to move from Laos
to Ban Vinai, where he stayed in a refugee camp in the boarding country of Thailand. After having spent four years in the
refugee camp his family made their way to the United States in the summer of 1984. In the United States Lee struggled to find
himself as well as to hold on to what was important to him. Growing up and trying to fit in wasn't easy. Fitting in for
him meant being able to read, write, and communicate with others. Unlike Dali who dressed to stand out and often got into
fights, Lee hid himself in the background while trying to connect with peers through language. As he discovered where he fit
in, he once again began to appreciate his worth and was at peace.
From
a young age, his parents had always encouraged Lee to do something worth while and useful. After graduating from high school,
Lee told his parents that he wanted to make art as a living. He quickly found out from them that creating art for a living
was not considered to be an option. Lee quoted his father, "We didn't bend over backward, having scarified so much,
and risked our lives to bring you to the United States, the land of opportunities to simply become an artist."
The American Dream
Following the American Dream, Lee unfolded
his intentions to his parents again. This time, it was to become a teacher, leaving art out. And his parents quickly approved.
As for Lee, he had decided that teaching art had a lot to do with him wanting to reach to the other invisible children. He
said "I am offering them ways to find themselves, a way for them to be proud of who they are and above all to have a
sense of belonging." He introduces art as a vehicle for expression and a mean for self-appreciation, emphasizing the
importance of seeing what one has rather than what one wants. Unlike Dali who was lost between the wars within himself, Lee
found himself lost in trying to help guide and open the eyes of students who are still lost between worlds or are troubled
expressing and appreciating themselves. This was the beginning of his climb up his mountain of making himself known as one
who is proud of his culture.
Lee's Summer Workshop
Over the summer of 2008, I was given the honor to attend an art class taught by Lee himself at the Center for Hmong Arts
and Talents (CHAT) in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was an extensive four day class, with a result of having an authentic, meaningful,
and ready to hang piece for the "CHAT Art Saves Us Festival" held in August at the Marion Sculptural Park. At 9:15
am, Lee opened the first day of class with the question: What is Art? He went on to stress the heart and soul of art, which
in his view is the human component. Lee said, "Art is meaningless if the artist was unable to instill a spirit into it,
a spirit that resonates with the viewer after having viewed it." Lee is a great artist and educator as he answers every
question with honesty, clarity, and meaningful gestures, focusing me, my own thoughts and view of what is important to me.
Although today Lee is often portrayed as a young, talented, pioneer
in his field, a very optimistic man with a kind heart, and a bright outlook for the Hmong culture and arts, he has gone through
many great challenges and had to overcome most of them. Some of these challenges included his family showing little to no
support for his art. Lee's parents have never shown much emotional support, Lee was never showered with encouragements
or compliments from his love and achievements in the art that he has created and now enriching our community. Another challenge
was in 2005 when his father passed away. This was a really dark period in Lee's life. Lee admitted, "My father's
death left a huge void in my heart and it took me a lot to get a grip on it, but luckily for me I was able to turn it into
something positive. It led me to see the beauty of my culture resulting in gaining a great deal of appreciation for my cultural
values, traditions, cultural practices and rituals. More importantly, as an extension of his death, it has opened my eyes
with much more clarity to finally see what is sacred and important to me: cultural identity as well as my dual identities
being a Hmong-American." Along with having faced these challenges, he has also survived the jungle of Laos, the confined
refugee camp of Ban Vinai, and the mean street of north Minneapolis. Lee graduated from Augsburg College with a Secondary
Education and Studio Art Degree in 1997. He has been teaching art for eleven years and now currently teaching at Patrick Henry
in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Today, Lee seems to have managed to put the puzzle of his life together. Lee commented, "I
am content with my identity" as he teaches students the beauty of having two cultures.
Identity in Lee's Art
In many of Lee's art pieces, he draws inspiration from
his Hmong identity. One specific work, "Nub Sis Looj" (Figure 4) is the name of a legendary Qeej player. The Qeej
is an instrument used for celebration of life events and as a guiding tool for the deceased journeying back to the Hmong ancestral
homeland. In Hmong culture, death is seen as "part of the life cycle that a person is born with a mandate (txoj hmoo)
to live to certain age" and that after dying, one will be reborn.
In this piece, one can see a lot of swirls and
colors used. The lines shooting out of the figure look like wind full of energy because of the many colors. The colors and
the swirls in the background create a sense of fast movement, like the actual dance of the player. The swirls really draw
in the viewer's eyes and the repetition creates a visual sense of harmony, reflecting the musical harmony Lee is seeking
to represent. The swirls in Lee's piece represent the different sounds that the Qeej can make, therefore there are seven
different color in total; one for each tone. The Qeej is a powerful symbol and has been used many times in Lee's art pieces.
He seems to value the idea that thanks to the Qeej player everyone who has die, including his father will finally be on their
way to a new life.
Another way of revealing identity is by showing
what is culturally important to a person. In the piece "Nub Sis Looj", some parts of the figure are covered in gold
leaf. Lee learned about the gold leaf process from his professor when Lee stumbled upon a shiny gold leafed icon, which sparked
his interest. Lee's professor taught him the process and more importantly, told him, "Seexeng, gold leaf is reserved
for the rich and sacred." Even after learning about the process, the idea of being rich or sacred didn't occur to
him until after his father's death. In Figure 4, gold leaf is used to emphasize the significance of what Nub Sis Looj
is to Lee's cultural beliefs, how the dead can continue the cycle of a Hmong life. Although Lee acknowledged that many
cultures use gold leaf to emphasis the rich and sacred and are usually commissioned by rich people, he (though not a rich
person) feels he has rich heart and that his culture is also sacred. It is his ultimate goal to express the truth of his statement.
A second powerful piece that captures Lee's identity is "Preserving
our Fabric" (Figure 5). The piece has two hands holding and embracing two torn up golden Paj Ntaub (flower cloth) and
ripped Story Cloth. The background is black and this makes the reaching out hands look realistic. The Paj Ntuab fabric in
the middle looks like the collar on the back of a traditional Hmong shirt. And the collar of the Hmong shirt is used to identify
the type of Hmong people- whether they belong to the white, green, black, or stripe Hmong. This helps reinforce the fact that
what is in these gingerly opened hands is not just any kind of cloth, but special cloths, cloths that serve as identifiers
of the Hmong people, distinguishing themselves from other people. What Lee is portraying through this piece in my mind is
that he is preserving what is left of his Hmong identity and culture. These golden pieces are valued and are in need of securing
and protecting. And as mentioned before, the Paj Ntaub does look torn and old. This may represent his concern for his quickly
fading art form, cultural values, and traditions. On the other hand, he may want us to see that there are priceless artifacts
worthy of our attention to preserve for future generations. Lee believes that rather than hiding his identity and pushing
his culture aside, he should show other people golden aspects of his being; his culture and thus they too, can preserve their
own identities and cultural beliefs.
One of the more recent pieces that
Lee has created is "Silent Cry" (Figure 6). At first glance, one can make out a figure right in the middle of the
piece. There is a black background and white vertical lines that seems to have dripped down to form a human's contour.
One can see the figure sitting down with his back turned towards the viewer with its head kind of down which shows a sense
of disappointment. The ground is filled with red and yellow. The contribution of the black background gives viewers an empty
feeling. The vertical lines in Lee's work can be interpreted as tears or rain, which falls down onto the figure, and is
washing away the figure's color as well. The colors are also being swallowed into the blackness. Yellow usually represent
happiness and life, and the color red is for power. As these colors are being washed away, Lee captures a sad mood. On the
figures back, there is a blue Hmong symbol which stands for family. This may express all Lee's disappointing events and
it washing his colors away, however, the blue symbol is trying hard to stay on his back, symbolizing that even though whatever
hardships that he is going through, his family will always be there to help him. In this piece, Lee succeeded by capturing
the essence of one person silently crying to themselves on the inside, but still retaining their identity.
My Conversation with Lee
On November 8, 2008, when everything I researched
finally began falling into it‘s place, I gave Seexeng Lee a call at around 6:30 pm. Upon asking many questions about
his life and art, I also asked if he thinks his works and Dali's art works correlate or not. Respectfully, he replied,
"The difference between Dali and I is that Dali draws his inspirations from the dark area of his subconscious thoughts
and his being, where I based my inspirations on the brighter are of the core elements of my people's make up, my peoples
common experience and the shared outlook of my Hmong people." Upon reflecting, I find this to be true because rather
than drawing dreams or intangible pieces, Lee focused more on his culture, where his real identity lies. Dali, however, is
still searching for his identity. Although he produced many memorable, ground breaking, and priceless art prices, none showed
contentment with himself.
Conclusion:
It is
quite obvious that Dali and Lee have their differences, however they shared small similarities. For Dali, it was his identity
of wanting to be found. He wanted a place to fit in; a place to call home and this has motivated him all throughout his life
to discover himself through arts. As he tackled both his physical and emotional wars, he became intrigued with the subconscious
mind. Through his arts, one can see that Dali was a sincere, lost, and troubled soul who never fully recovers from his challenges.
On the other hand, Lee who was also a lost soul and also grew up during harsh times, dealt with unforeseen challenges and
faced a clashing of the two worlds: one where self expression existed and the other which has no definition of art. Growing
up and following the American Dream in America, Lee slowly rediscovered his culture. And with this, a better understanding
of his culture and new surroundings, it slowly began to shape his identity. Without a need to further question Lee's own
identity, he stood confidently and passionately in front of the classroom, ready to offer invisible students ideas on how
to find and appreciate themselves through art. Despite the vast time and space between the both of them, their depiction of
their identity was quite vivid.
