Lee McIntyre has been a studio artist with the Fish Factory for six years, and has been involved with its growth as an arts space from almost the beginning. He studied Fine Art at Stourbridge College of Arts and will soon complete his final year at Falmouth.
Lee grew up in Cornwall but has explored a variety of places, such as Birmingham, London and Wales. He describes the Fish Factory’s move from Falmouth to Penryn as an inevitable step which will allow larger artistic and social contributions to the area. Lee also organises community printmaking at the Fish Factory and describes how his art is informed by contextual social issues concerning housing, healthcare and the disparity of wealth. He enjoys collaborative research, which inspires him to independently explore these concerns in his art in an indirect way. Lee is no longer in the studio but he has opened an amazing radical book store and coffee shop RUBICUND in Falmouth.
Lee uses media such as music, photography and screen printing in his art and one of his upcoming projects, “A Drop in the Ocean” will involve sculptures, film and performance. Lee’s favourite exhibition at the Fish Factory to date was by Ludwig Gustavsson, who used graffiti as a medium. Lee stresses the importance of “living in the contemporary moment,” and one of his exhibitions was called “Dystopia-oke,” where he presented karaoke as an art form, encouraging people to sing and engage in an immersive, collective performance, and this, of course, was also an opportunity for Lee to perform his favourite songs to an enthusiastic audience.