Lee Price: Self Portraits, Food, and Reflections in the Water
We spoke to Lee Ann Price, an American figurative realist painter based in Beacon, New York, about food, art, self-discovery, and finally, self-acceptance.
Music curated by Michelle Hernández.
Full (2007)
44” x 54”
Private Collection
Snack (2009)
52” x 40”
Private Collection
Ms. Price, welcome to The Baram House! Please give our readers a short introduction.
I was born in the small upstate New York town of Elmira. For the past thirty years, I have made paintings which focused on the theme of women and food.
When and how did you start painting? What pushed you to continue the craft until now?
I don’t have a good explanation of why I started painting or why I continue to paint other than that I am drawn to do it. My interest in art goes back as far as I can remember. Even in kindergarten I knew I wanted to make art in some form when I grew up. My mother was my high school art teacher. She often took my sisters and me to art museums and galleries growing up. I received my BFA in painting from Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art in 1990. From there I moved to Los Angeles and floundered for many years. I was making paintings but I was also a bit directionless. Eventually I moved back to New York and began studying with various teachers at the New York Academy of Art—most notably Alyssa Monks.
Self-Portrait in Tub With Chinese Food (2009)
44” x 44”
Private Collection
When did you create your first bathroom painting? Was there a particular motivation behind it?
I began painting the bathtub paintings around 2008. However, I had been painting the theme of women and food since I was in college. At Moore I made large, life size paintings of women in interiors with food placed randomly about the scene—someone holding a bunch of carrots, a stray banana on a window ledge, a seated woman feeding an orange to a dog. Back then I had no conscious understanding of what these scenes were about. It wasn’t until I started my “Women and Food” series in 2008, that I began to have clarity about the theme.
Why food?
Most of the early paintings in the Women and Food series are about compulsive eating. I had a compulsive eating disorder for many years. The paintings are autobiographical. Because this topic is very personal to me the paintings also follow a trajectory that was mirrored in my life. If the series is viewed chronologically the trajectory becomes obvious—from compulsive behavior, through acceptance, to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship women have with food and self-image.
What is your opinion on digital paintings and illustrations?
Art is art. I know people who are doing fabulous things with digital art. I think it’s great that people are using “non-traditional” materials to make art. This has been going on forever.
Refuge (2009)
44” x 64”
Private Collection
Cocoa Puffs (2009)
44” x 62”
Private Collection
For a variety of reasons, portraiture is a difficult subject matter to approach for many oil painters. One reason we can think of is the difficulty of portraying the depth of human skin. Do you have any pointers on how to paint skin?
I think difficulty in painting any particular thing whether it be skin, hair, water, fabric, etc. is mostly mental. Either we think something is complex so it becomes complex or we have such an ingrained perception of how something looks that we can’t see beyond this to what is actually there. I don’t think that I tackle skin any differently than I tackle anything else. I do not have a formula of colors that I use because skin tones are different and they are also altered by the environment that they are in (as is everything else).
Blueberry Pancakes II (2011)
65” x 30”
Private Collection
Do you ever experience a creative block? How do you usually overcome it?
Only once, but it is currently going on and it has been lasting for several years. Since it’s still going on I can’t say how (or if) I will overcome it, but I think it has to do with letting go of control. Stop trying to force ideas. Stop worrying about whether or not I have something important to say. I never worried about this in the beginning. The ideas popped into my head and I didn’t question or analyze them. I just wanted to get them out.
Lemon Slices II (2012)
76” x 34”
Private Collection
For you, is art a meditative practice or a source of tumult? Or both?
For me painting is 90 percent tumult and 10 percent meditative practice. I have been willing to go through the tumult to have a sliver of meditative practice. I would like to turn this around—90 percent meditative and 10 percent tumult… or at least get to 50-50.
Do you have a long-term creative goal?
I would like to be enthusiastic about painting again. I would like to paint with abandon. I would like to make art and not worry about the outcome. These are my current goals.
Lee Ann Price was born in the small upstate New York town of Elmira. She studied painting at Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art and has a long-held fascination with the intersection of the subjects of women and food. The images—bird’s-eye views of women surrounded by luscious-looking desserts or the crumpled wrappers of a junk-food binge—are all self portraits, painted from photographs of the artist. Her available paintings are sold through Evoke Contemporary.