At 38 feet tall, Nick Lee’s colorful mural, This Yokai is a Ningyo, is hard to miss when you pass the Shoreway Building on West 76th Street in Battery Park.
Unveiled in March through an artist residency with FeverDream, This Yokai is a Ningyo depicts a hand holding a figurine with the body of a Ken Doll and the head of a samurai. A colorful, shimmering skirt, which illudes to a mermaid’s tail, replaces its legs. Inspired by the fluidity of the human experience, Lee strives to highlight minorities, like himself, in Western portraits.
As a Japanese American artist, he also wanted the mural to comment on self-discovery and the importance of identity.
“I’ve always wanted to create work [that is] authentic to who I am as a person,” he says.
Lee graduated from Kent State University in 2021 with a bachelor’s in painting. Since then, he’s taught art and science to children for Mad Science of Northeast Ohio. In the fall, Lee finished his artist residency with FeverDream, a Cleveland-based arts organization. The nonprofit helps emerging artists thrive and grow as they pave their way into the art industry by providing them “time, space and funds to pursue work they’re passionate about creating.” At the end of the artist residency, the art residents get to paint a mural for The Shoreway.
In his family, the 27-year-old artist is known as Sansei, a term used in Japanese culture to refer to third-generation Japanese Americans. Lee’s work often incorporates vibrant colors and symbolic Japanese objects to create a connection to his roots.
This Yokai is a Ningyo, for example, Lee paints a playful commentary on his biracial identity by using Japanese culture symbols like a yokai, Japanese for ghost-like creature, and a ningyo, Japanese for human fish. Lee wanted water to be prevalent in his piece to remain consistent with the themes of past art residents. The piece also features subtle, yet powerful, references to American pop culture with the mermaid tail referencing the remake of The Little Mermaid and the Ken Doll body referencing The Barbie Movie. These films received racist and sexist backlash, like when Halle Bailey — a Black singer and actress — was cast to play the role of Ariel in The Little Mermaid.
Maxmillian Peralta, the program director for FeverDream, feels that Lee’s artwork reflects his journey as a Filipino-American artist who is also exploring his own identity as a biracial artist.
“I think it’s just his proficiency in rendering,” says Peralta, describing how Lee’s ability to create realistic representations in his paintings, makes his artwork unique. “But not just that. [It’s Lee’s painting’s] subject matter and its power.”
“It looks like the painting puts you, as the viewer, holding the doll,” he adds. “It’s like examining that relationship between two cultures.”
From now through the end of May, Lee’s art will be part of the group art exhibit Birds of a Feather, which celebrates eight Asian-American artists in Northeast Ohio region. In June, he’s co-curating The Groundhog Show, an annual pop-up art exhibit in Akron. In August, FeverDream will eight of Lee’s paintings, including This Yokai is a Ningyo, will be on display at the FeverDream headquarters, as part of another group collaboration.
“I’m trying to express how I feel as a Japanese American,” says Lee. “I really do it for myself and my people.”
