Entertaining, informative, perplexing and amusing are some of the many ways to describe the artwork of Austin Lee. The same can be said when observing the internet. It would make sense then that the two were birthed in the same year.

Born in Las Vegas in 1983 and now based in Brooklyn, Lee’s practice floats between digital technologies and traditional painterly means. While it may be normal nowadays for artists to bypass using a pencil and paper for preliminary sketches, Lee has almost always mapped out his thoughts through the computer. Not reserved to any one preference, he seeks “to bring out the best in each” medium he works with.

Nowadays, Lee regularly uses AR and VR to build the enigmatic worlds his characters operate in and then reverts to airbrush and traditional painterly techniques to bring them to life on canvas. His aesthetic, though difficult to pinpoint, appears somewhere in between the charm of Nintendo 64 graphics and a dystopian future, where horses, flowers and humanoid figures blend within a chromatic void. “There is always a deep sadness around the corner. I don’t put that in the work on purpose but it’s part of who I am and comes out in unconscious ways,” Lee tells Hypeart.

A student of history, Lee is acutely aware of how art is one continuous story — from figures and periods to motifs. His own work is riddled with subtle hints at love, anxiety and the excitement and confusion ushered in by technology. As it is the case within this article, Lee will surely be one of the figures we celebrate in the future, much as the predecessors whom inspired him, as his work reflects the threshold we currently find ourselves in. This ‘phygital’ world where hope and uncertainty, sadness and ecstasy twirl around in Matisse-like fashion.

Having recently showcased several major solo exhibitions, including a show at Jeffrey Deitch in New York, the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, along with his current show at Pace Prints, Hypeart caught up with Lee to discuss his practice, how he develops his pieces and his thoughts on the emergence of new technologies, such as AI.