The Thousands

Being cheap to get hold of – and really difficult to get technically good at – makes watercolour a double-threat of an artistic medium. On top of that, it has this aura of dorkiness that is perfect for reclamation. It doesn’t seem like Rob Yee is using it in full hipster medium mode, though. He’s said before that he maybe wants to be a scientific illustrator when he grows up, and describes the current show as “a loose collection of typologies,” wherein different kinds of a thing or a shape are presented in each work.  There are simultaneous depictions of similarity and development in each piece, which show the influence on his work Yee ascribes to Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel was an early proponent of evolution who is now held up by Creationists as an example of how it was made up as the result of a printer’s error with some illustrations. Awkward!

But Yee’s works, in all their apparent unironic interestedness and enjoyment, are hand-done,  so you can totally blame him for anything in them that develops into evidence for worldviews you don’t like. Or laugh at him for doing watercolours. Or make fun of the people who laugh at him for doing watercolours. Or, smirk to your friends about the people who make fun of people for laughing at watercolours. Whatever you’re, like, really really into.