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Urban Camping
Korea-born David Choong Lee talks about hipster bags, life before San Francisco, and Jack Montgomery.---------------
By Anselina Chia
Aug 8, 2006 | David Choong Lee is known for his realistic depictions of the homeless in San Francisco. “Jack Montgomery -- he was the first guy I painted and the first friend I made,” he says. A beat passes. “I didn’t even know he was homeless until later.”
Lee began his art education at Hoin-Ik University, Seoul, and went on to obtain a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Fine Arts at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, where he currently teaches figurative and classical realistic drawing. Besides exhibiting in the U.S. and Korea, he also runs 2nd Round Productions, a clothing and book publishing company.
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He
has published five books on his urban art: God Made Dirt, And Dirt Don’t
Hurt (2000), 4 WORDS (2003), Dirt (2003), San Francisco
Urban Camper (2005), and most recently, Convergence (2005),
a collection featuring himself and MARS-1, Damon Soule, Brett Amory, NoMe
Edonna, and Oliver Vernon. A self-professed DJ fanatic, Lee enjoys African
beat and hip hop, and plays with his turntables and mixers -- things he discovered
when he moved from Seoul to San Francisco “all of a sudden” in
1993.
All of a sudden? Tell us more about that.
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It
was a crazy time in Korea. People were working really hard to earn money to
support themselves and their families. I grew up drawing and painting in Seoul,
but there weren’t many jobs for artists there. We were
all struggling artists -- I didn't know what to do with what I was doing.
So I decided to check out other countries. Until 1988, it was hard to go outside
of the country officially without permission, so I was one of the first few
to leave the country. I arrived in San Francisco with just a little bit of
money and two suitcases. That was it.
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It
couldn’t have been easy. How did you feel during the first few months
in San Francisco?
I definitely felt like I was out of place. Because my English was very poor, it was very hard for me to communicate with people, so I was quite upset at that time. Eventually, my English improved just from talking to the people around me. That’s how I got to know and become friends with the homeless people I painted. At first, we barely understood each other. I would start to talk and they would listen carefully and then try to figure out what I’d said. I found it easier to talk to the homeless because they didn’t criticize me. I think being in their position makes them more understanding and less critical.
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