Artist Bio.

Lee Hoag is a multimedia artist known for creating works in a variety of mediums: painting, sculpture, mixed media, installation, and video/image manipulation. For more than 30 years he has ably switched between media as it suits his current expressive interests, building cohesive bodies of work in each discipline. Born in 1958 in Tucson, Arizona, he attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where he received a B.F.A. in painting studying under Robert Hudson and Hassel Smith among many others. Years later he added a master's degree in art eduaction from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

In 1996, he was selected with several others to each create their own large sculpture or installation for the event, "Artist's Garden Project," in conjunction with the Lilac Festival in Rochester, NY. Though no stranger to the use of found objects in his work, having incorporated them into the fabric of his work since art school, it was through the creation of this piece that his ideas for how he would use found objects as material, began formulating and changing. It's when he developed his creation process, which allows him to interchange, or re-reuse certain parts in different configurations--speeding up and widening his creative dialog. He's interested in what he refers to as, the "alchemy of objects," or the transformation that occurs with everyday utilitarian objects when they are joined together into an amalgam form as an object of art.

Over the past twenty-some years his work has been exhibited in a many exhibition spaces in Rochester, where he lives and works as an ASL educational interpreter. He has also exhibited in Connecticut, Delaware, North Carolina, Arizona, California, and variously about state, such as Made In New York 2012 and 1996 at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn. A highlight of his career was being invited to Leipzig, Germany to create a new work for Kopf Los 2000, an annual invitational at Freiluftgalerie Stotteritz, an outdoor sculpture park. Most recently, two of his sculptures were a included in this summer's Rochester - Exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery. The Alchemy of Objects

My work is a collaboration with selected objects I encounter and their past creators. Found and selected materials: ready-made or reinvented, stumbled upon or sought after, are the elements from which these sculptures are crafted. Through a postmodern alchemy embedded meaning is transformed, new relationships are forged. This alchemy of objects is simply the transformation that occurs within these various collected forms and the ways in which they are seen, thought about and interpreted. Each object part having existence for some other use and intended purpose, through a developed experimentation process and improvisational working, is brought together to create a composite form, something unexpected---farfetched from its original inherent nature. At some point, each thing transforms from a mass produced manufactured object: a vase, a pressure flex hose, a roof vent, a kitchen bowl, a fence post cap or what have you, and collectively becomes part of a new handmade form and singular object. Morphology altered, they now exist as objects of art and artifice, bearing resemblance to that which comes from my unconscious self, shaped by the hand of my personality----even marked in some way by the viewer's own response, imaginations and interpretations. Changed.

Most of the objects used would be impossible to make and recreate each engineered and crafted thing. They individually serve as material to construct sculptural assemblage combines. Without these preexisting objects of attraction acting as a catalyst in creating these abstract sculpture forms, without the randomness of chance and discovery allowed into the process, they would never have come to be.

In the processes by which they take on new shape and come to life, certain unanticipated opportunities are exploited. Amid a repertoire of reoccurring and transposable object parts, a developed rapport with the material and an interplay of dialogue between the works, the elements of serendipity and surprise are allowed---striking balance between accident or plan, chance or intention. The role the medium takes on is transformative: elements forming compounds. The objects, taken out of their first frame of reference and repurposed into a quite different context, carry with them residual information. Often accompanied by a degree of recognition and familiarity, they become assimilated into this other created language of forms and associations, brought together and formed as an art object.

While dealing with such formal concerns of form as: shape, line, material and scale, the essence of my work is the transmutation of objects and materials. As in the historic model where base metals were sought to be changed into precious, these utilitarian and ordinary objects are altered and recreated into something extraordinary and unique. Ingredients taken from various other contexts of meaning, such as: food prep, plumbing, hardware, automotive, and home & garden are brought together through chance, experimentation, imagination and invention, then permeated with new meaning and associations. They combine together to construct amalgamated forms conjured from the unconscious----spontaneously imagined and carefully crafted----forever altered by this collaboration.

"Seeing alters the thing that is seen and transforms the seer." (Elkins) Lee Hoag 330 Sunset Street | Rochester, NY 14606 | 585.336.9641 [email protected] | www.leehoag.com

Commissions / Installations 1999 Passage a temporary site specific guerilla art installation, Pittlerstrasse, Leipzig, Germany 1997 verve ~ a temporary site specific installation with Chris Kienke, Village Gate Square, Rochester, NY funded by Special Opportunity Stipend grant. 1996 Artist’s Garden Project ~ Uproot a temporary installation, Highland Park Conservancy; Lilac Festival, Inc.; Monroe County Parks Department, Rochester, NY One Person Exhibitions 2013 Lee Hoag: Alchemy of Objects Roz Steiner Art Gallery, Genesee Community College, Batavia, NY 2011 Lost & Found: New Work Four Walls Art Gallery, Rochester, NY 1999 a k a bill hoag Mercer Gallery, , Rochester, NY 1996 a k a bill hoag NOFO Gallery, Wilmington, NC 1995 Erotic Abstraction Rush Rheese Gallery, , Rochester, NY 1993 Fetishes, Icons and Talismans Arterior Motives, Rochester, NY 1992 Eleven, Carpe Diem, Rochester, NY Invitational Exhibitions 2000 Kopf Los - 2000 Freiluftgalerie Stotteritz, Leipzig. Germany 1998 Genesee Valley Sculpture Invitational Lederer Gallery, SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, NY 1997 Rochester Artists Invitational Second Floor Gallery, Center at High Falls, Rochester, NY 1996 Harvest Gallery 53, Cooperstown, NY 1995 19th Amendment: Aftereffects 468 West main Street Gallery, Rochester, NY Multi-media exhibit of women and men addressing gender issues. Juried Exhibitions 2013 64th Rochester - Finger Lakes Exhibition Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY 2012 Made In NY 2012 Schweinfurth Memorial ART Center, Auburn, NY 2010 Rochester Erotic Arts Festival Harro East Ballroom , Rochester, NY 2007 DACE (Digital Arts Competition and Exhibition) RIT and Gallery r, Rochester, NY 1998 No England, No Amsterdam III Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT 1997 New Work ‘97 Artspace, New Haven, CT 1997 Fin de Siecle - End of the Century Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE 1996 Made In NY Schweinfurth Memorial ART Center, Auburn, NY 1995 In, On, Above, Beside, and Beyond Sweinforth Memorial ART Center, Auburn, NY 1994 New Directions ‘94 Barret House Galleries, Dutchess County Art Assoc., Poughkeepsie, NY 1993 52nd Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY Selected Group Exhibitions 2007 Salon des Refusés / Finger Lakes @ Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY 2001 Hot Artworks Now Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY 1999 Relics & Icons Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY 1998 Black Velvet & Other Tactile Delights Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY 1997 Boxes, Books, and Altars Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Bufalo, NY 1997 Tools of the Trade: Anti-tech at the End of the 20th Century Pyramid Arts Center,Rochester, NY a k a: an artists’ collective, Olean Public Gallery, Olean Public Library, Olean, NY 1996 gravity: a k a @ the T House Tea House Art Gallery, Rochester, NY Finger Lakes: Salon des Refusés: a k a @ the T House, Tea House Art Gallery, Rochester, NY 1995 Process ~ Generation / Degeneration / Regeneration - an installation project with Todd Smith, Pyramid Arts Center, Rochester, NY 1994 Art As Healing Pyramid Arts Center, Rochester, NY 1993 Group Student Union Gallery, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Grants / Awards 1996 Special Opportunity Stipend New York Foundation for the Arts / New York State Council of the Arts / Arts & Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, Rochester, NY 1997 Director’s Honorable Mention Fin de Siecle -- End of the Century, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE Curatorial 1997 Forms of Abstraction: Twelve Sculptors Second Floor Gallery, Center at High Falls, Rochester, NY 1997 a k a: an artists’ collective Olean Public Gallery, Olean, NY invited by Sara Kellner, Visual Arts Director, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY Lectures / Presentations 2011 Lee Hoag: Lost & Found FourWalls Art Gallery, Rochester, NY 1999 a k a bill hoag Mercer Gallery, Monroe Community College, Rohester, NY 1996 a k a bill hoag Art Dept., University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC 1997 a k a: an artists’ collective, Olean Public Library, Olean, NY 1995 Erotic Abstraction Rush Rheese Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 1994 Art As Healing, Pyramid Arts Center, Rochester, NY Publications / Reviews Beautiful Thug, Paul, 12/6/09, Pop Wars No Jacket Required, Rebecca Rafferty, 12/23/09. City Newspaper Members: Rochester Contemporary Members Show, Rebecca Rafferty, 12/10/08, City Newspaper Thrift Store Metts S&M, Lisa Carino, 10/3/99, The Monroe Doctrine Cultural Dominance, Jim Buck, 9/22/99, City Newspaper All Teched Out: Pyramid Looks At Change, Ron Netsky, 8/13/97 City Newspaper Eleven Artists Look At MAG and Art In Rochester, Donna DePalma, 11/96, Lake Effect Magazine Making Art At Pyramid, Donna DePalma, 2/23/95, City Newspaper Before, During and After, John Worden, 2/1595, Democrat & Chronicle / Times Union Sharp Sticks On the Road To Health, Jane Culbert Notides, 6/30/94, City Newspaper New Kid On the Block, Elizabeth Forbes, 3/3/93, Democrat & Chronicle / Times Union Exhibit At Art Attack Showcases Work / Three Artists, 2/5/93 Sabrina Vouvoulias, Chenango Valley News Education Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY MST Art Education, 1992 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA BFA Painting, 1979