Sálongo
Lee
Bio & Artist Statement
Sálongo Lee is a gypsy who was born in Richmond Virginia, raised in East Orange New Jersey and has lived and worked as a photographer/visual artist in Miami Florida, Atlanta Georgia, Tucson Arizona and Portland Oregon. Thirty of his sixty-one years were spent living the California dream. Sálongo lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirteen years teaching photography, printmaking and college for seven years at the City of Oakland’s Studio One Art Center. He also owned MooBoo Gallery, an alternative exhibition space for emerging visual artists and was gallery manager for J Lathan Gallery, which specialized in East African artists, Shona and Soap Stone sculpture. Seventeen of those years where also lived in Los Angeles, where he operated a successful commercial photography business and worked as a freelance and staff photojournalist for local, national and international print publications.
As a visual artist he has exhibited across the US and in Australia. His work
can be found in public and private collections. His exhibition history can
be found on his web site www.salongosart.com as well as publications, collectors
and audio and video interviews. Sálongo has also established himself
as curator and exhibitions coordinator with successful exhibitions for Our
Dream Gallery and The Alberta Arts Pavilion in Portland Oregon, the LA Collective,
J Lathan Gallery and a host of arts organizations.
He now lives in Natchez Mississippi near the bluffs, overlooking the Mississippi
River. While still sharing studio/gallery space in Inglewood California with
several visual artist friends, collaborating with The LA Collective and continuing
exhibit in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene; he has made Natchez his home
since 2007 and has become an active participant in the local art scene as
an artist and as a photographer providing services to the growing art community.
He recently received the 2008 Mississippi Artist Fellowship In Visual Arts
for photography and will have his work on “www.SouthernArtisty.org”.
Sálongo is working on a photography exhibition/book project about Black
theater and dance in Atlanta during the 1970’s for the Auburn Avenue
Library for Research on African American Culture & History. I photographed
almost every major company during that period. He will still participate in
the Bay Area’s annual “The Art Of Living Black” exhibition
as he has for the past ten years. He has been invited to create new work for
a group exhibition "The Sky Is Gray". This exhibition will open
November 2008 at the Shaw Center for the Arts in the LSU School of Art
Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibition Gallery in Baton Rouge Louisiana. It is
a tribute to Louisana native Ernest Gaines, an award winning writer.
“ Technology is just a tool; it’s our eye and imagination that
brings the final image into existence
for all to see, feel and experience that moment caught in time. Sálongo
Lee©2008 ”
The Images of Photographs, Paintings, Mono Types, Artist Books and Installations are the sole
creation of the artist. No images can be downloaded, copied, reproduced, altered or used in other
software applications, print or electronic media, medium or in other form what so ever without the written permission of the artist his heirs or his estate. No Copy Rights are transferred and all Copy Rights remain with the artist, his heirs or his estate.
Copy Right 1994-2008