Artist Bio: Annie Lee was a Chief Clerk in the Engineering Department of a railroad. Today, Annie Lee is an internationally acclaimed artist and gallery owner known to art collectors the world over as "Annie Lee."
As an adult, one Monday morning at five o'clock as Annie Lee tried to get it together, she came up with "Blue Monday." She wondered if anybody else felt as bad as she did having to go out on that cold winter morning to catch the bus to work. Annie Lee is a humorist and a realist and her style has been referred to as "Black Americana."
Annie Lee will tell you her secret to success is her faith in God and a willingness to help others. God did this through me. You have to have faith. I never thought I would leave the railroad, but it was the best thing I ever did. It was hard to leave the security, but you have to take a leap of faith."
Her works have been featured in "ER", Bill Cosby's spin-off show "A Different World" and Eddie Murphy's movies "Coming to America" and "Boomerang".
WHY NO FACES????
All characters in Annie's paintings have one common trait; faces which has no features. Why does Annie paint in this manner? Here are Annie's reasons:
Annie Lee prefers to bring her paintings to life through the movement and body language of the characters. Annie does not want faces to interfere with the story she is painting through the body language of her characters.
By painting without faces, Annie allows her customers to project themselves or people that they know into the painting. Although Blue Monday is Annie's only self portrait, Annie didn't paint her face on the painting because she knows everybody can relate to having a Blue Monday, and wants her customers to be able to picture themselves in the painting.
When Annie started painting commercially she wanted to be unique and different from other artists. Painting without faces has certainly become one of Annie's distinct trademarks.
