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Dee was extremely privileged to be presented with the coveted top forty under forty award for his work and has been commissioned to complete projects at home with the Ulster Museum and as far a field as Israel, Spain and America, working with the Smithsonian Institute.
Dee continues to dedicate a huge amount of his time to the community projects he is involved in, although in recent years he has also developed a very fast growing fan base for his fine art collection, after a number of extremely successful exhibitions inside and outside the city.
Growing up in a working class neighbourhood, the emotional and social grievances but proud work ethics are what define Dee as an artist. Just like most of his subject matter, which focuses on working class every day people and Dee’s personal experiences within his environment, his contemporary figurative artwork is strong and conspicuous displaying contentment, optimism and bright confidence while at the same time he captures the other feelings of minds and thoughts. Fear, pain and solitude; the discrepancies and gap between the rich and poor are also emotions which Dee aims to portray.
He uses bold hard lines to represent the strength and steadfastness that working class people ooze, while at the same time using dark colours drawn from thoughts and feelings to portray a somewhat lack of aspiration imbedded in the set in stone belief some view as ‘imprisonment’ in a level or class of life. Brighter colours are also used to represent how we can over come these obstacles to strive forward in life and adapt in a more modern society.
Whilst describing his past life growing up in the shadow of the cranes Dee’s work would somewhat be categorised as ‘urban edgy’ with a twist of the past, a style he has developed over the years combining a mixture of influences, and one which has certainly made Dee one of the provinces most collectible artists.
On reflection Dee feels fortunate for the experiences his youth brought him. Living in such a community is certainly hard and misunderstood by so many, but Dee immersed him self in these experiences and has now found an incredible way to portray them visually allowing the viewer the opportunity to be part of Dee’s past and future.
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