Hugo Lau of Hong Kong's MiLK Magazine Interviews Lee Harvey Roswell

into their father/son routine Buster would laugh every time his father pitched him into the crowd. And as a result the crowd stopped laughing. So his father forbade him to laugh on stage, and sure enough the crowd was again rolling over with laughter, Buster never revealing to them just how much fun he was having taking all the abuse. And so, the legendary "stone-face" was born! You see, the audience needed Buster to look miserable and incensed in the midst of a conventionally awful situation, so that they could laugh. It's a curious sort of emotional alchemy that takes place, using pain to create pleasure, sadness to create happiness, levity out of gravity. That's why I love the clown. In all his chaos, he's a champion for hope. And ironically some of the most famous clowns had very sad and lonely lives behind the scenes. Mark Twain once said the secret source of humor is sorrow. I'm paraphrasing, not sure those are the exact words, but that's the gist of it.

MiLK: Well,Is there a particular person or social phenomenon you are referring in your works?

Yes there is, and that person is... me! A lot of my work is self-referential, me wallowing in my own filth so to speak. I've got enough of it! But I'm usually taking a thought or scenario from my own personal life, some disaster or another, and stretching that out into something most anyone
can relate to.

MiLK: I see there are soup n' crackers, mugshots, stills are still moving, slapstick, the red paintings series, can you briefly tell us the stories of and the reason you develop them?

LHR: The Red Paintings came first, in 2005. This was a collection of thirteen monochromatic reinterpretations of works by the Spanish painter, Goya. Naturally I love the classics, especially painters who rose up in the Mediterranean regions, and I find reappropriating their imagery to create new levels of meaning is always a pleasurable practice in whimsy. Why did I pick Goya? Well, for one, his character shines through his work so distinctly. A Goya is so immediately recognizable as a Goya, that I knew these images wouldn't be confused as solely my own visions. However unlearned the audience, they'd understand that I was riffing off someone else. And Goya's life was as unique and obscure as his work. He's often been regarded as the first "modern painter." Now a painter can't help but be modern. There's just no way around it. Lift a brush to canvas and you're a modern painter! So, after a fashion I wanted to salute the mad engineer who derailed the lot of us and sent us violently careening through space.

The Slapstick series is really me picking myself up off the floor after an extremely distressed time in my life. I felt as though everything around me was falling apart, and that blew up into a very heavy suicidal depression. To cope with this I locked myself in my studio and began watching my favorite slapstick comedies incessantly. I just stayed locked up in there, painting and watching these comedies, laughing as much as I could. Crying too. And when I emerged, I was set on a new track. Stills Are Still Moving, Mugshots, and Soup N' Crackers are stepping stones in my exploration of this hybrid mix of comic narratives.

MiLK: Like what I have mentioned in the mail, your works are dark and hilarious, is it how you think about the world and life?

LHR: Sure, life can be lonely, brutal, disappointing, contemptible... it's a gamble, with the one guarantee that you will experience that darkness to some degree. And consequently this is also the stuff of great art. Hell, this is the stuff of crap art too. But again, as a choice... or maybe in truth as an instinct, I want to show people that cold, cold world through the veil of humor. Because I don't want to beat people down. I want to lift them up if I can. And it's not just some mental twist on life, comedy. It's there if you let yourself see it. Think of all the set-backs you have in a typical day, missing buses or spilling coffee or misplacing keys. If you can step back, or outside of yourself for moment, so much of this stuff is laughable and is not the end of the world,as people so often inflate it to be. Ultimately it's not how you found it but how you left it that counts.

MiLK: I am not sure if I am right about this, I just have the feeling that you like the scene of classic jazz in 60s? Or let me put in this way, your works present an image of america in 60s or probably 70s, and remind me about Uncle Ray or probably Charles chaplin. Is this the good old time you like? How would you describe your style of painting? Is suit and shirt (esp stripe) your favorite attire?