Warren Jee is Chinese-American and was born in San Francisco in 1971 and has been creating art at Creativity Explored since 1996.
When he first started at CE he produced large paintings using brushes affixed to cylinders that were attached to his electric wheelchair. Some of his work can take months to complete given his limited range of motion and protracted movement, but these facts allow for collaborative solutions to creative problems. Jee wanted to make sculptures of the robots he had begun planning, but was not pleased with the uneven line he produced when creating the schematics. Staff generated paper with grids for him to follow with the understanding that the pieces cut from his drawings would adhere to the nearest grid line and replicate the exact dimensions he sought. Jee would then discuss his choices of material, color, accessory, etc with staff before it was assembled according to his design and vision.
Recently he has been creating abstract pieces on paper that range in scale from three feet by four feet to six-inch squares miniatures. Jee employs various adaptive tools such as the “brush helmet” (a modified face shield with a flexible rod that misc. implements can be fastened to). Whether working on the wall, the floor, or a table, Jee’s calligraphic brush strokes and delicate inscriptions made from the deliberate and precise movements of his body convey a sense of the natural world, and dancer’s awareness of space.