Illustrator Barry Lee on using art to overcome Nager syndrome

Artist Barry Lee’s new exhibit Home Is Where You Drown glares customers down as soon as they enter Octane Coffee’s Westside location. A collection of pink, cartoonish faces peer out from behind a thick forest painted on the wall. Staring is something Lee has grown to tolerate and expect, especially given his childhood spent in small-town North Carolina.

“I would go into a store and cashiers would just stare,” Lee says. “They wouldn’t even take my money.”

• Dylan Fagan
• BEHIND THE SCENE: Barry Lee’s Home Is Where You Drown kicks off tonight with an opening reception from 8-11 p.m.

Lee was born with an extremely rare condition called Nager syndrome. The disorder affects development in the face and hands — and in Lee’s case left him profoundly deaf, although he now has a cochlear implant. The rare condition can take a toll on breathing, making it possible only through the mouth — also Lee’s case.

At just 23 years old, he’s had around 20 surgeries as a result from the condition.

“In elementary school, I’d be bullied a lot,” he says. “I remember one time a kid threw me across the bus ... he would see my fingers and call me T-Rex.”

Four fingers on either hand didn’t stop Lee from picking up a pencil. He started very young, sitting in front of the television drawing from the screen on stacks of white printer paper. “I used art as survival,” he says. “Art was the only way to talk to people … during elementary school it was a true defense mechanism. The more I grew up, the less people bullied me — because I drew them pictures.”

The figures populating Lee’s work exist within soft, curving confines, and sloping lines. There’s a geometric quality to his mixed media approach, combining bright colors and the absurd to illustrate vignettes from his life. The narrative quality is quiet until you read the story behind it — then it roars at an arresting volume. One specific image, the show’s title piece depicts a swimming pool full of bodies. It’s a scene from a teenage experience. Lee explains on his Tumblr:

One day I was out with a friend of mine at the time, and we were just hanging out in the pool. I had my hearing aid off, because I can’t have my hearing aid in or near water. All of a sudden I turn to my right to see a larger older man talking to my friend. My friend speaks up and says (so I can at least faintly hear her), “He can’t hear you speak up.”

So the man come to find out was trying to have a conversation with me but since I couldn’t hear a thing, I didn’t really notice him. He speaks up and starts a statement off by saying “I’m a doctor.”
Now, weirdly enough I feel like anytime someone is about to say just something offensive to me or rude (etc.) the person always claims to be some sort of doctor. 

“I noticed you around the pool,” he continued “I feel like you would be a great candidate to go to this camp for the retarded.” 

After a brief pause on my part — mostly due to shock, I corrected him and told him what I did have, and continued to tell him I was moving to Atlanta to pursue my career in illustration. This made him notably embarrassed and he simply walked off.

“We’re all different,” Lee says. “This is the first time a collection of work about my life and my experiences has been out in public. My goal with the show is to really make people aware of differences but also to make people aware before they say something. … And the reason why the pieces are so bright and colorful and cheery — all of that — is because I wanted something approachable … almost as approachable as people who would go up to me as a stranger and talk to me … the reason why I decided to even have it in a coffee place too is you’re really getting more traffic in terms of everyday people.” 

Lee says his goal isn’t to ostracize or shame, but instead to bring an awareness to people. “I tell people what other people have said to me and they are shocked,” he says.

One recent experience he mentions involves a grown man Lee didn’t know ask about his hearing aid in a fast food joint and try to touch it. “But I also wonder, would they say that same thing in that scenario? What do you say and what don’t you say? Even I don’t know,” he says. “And that’s something I’m trying to discover myself.”

It’s a process Lee approaches with patience and inspiring grace.

“Sure, sometimes I have bad experiences and I feel down, but that’s how it is,” he says. “We always have tomorrow to be like, ‘OK, redo.’”

Home Is Where You Drown. Free. Nov. 8-Nov. 30, Mon.-Thur., 7 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri., 7 p.m.-12 a.m.; Sat.-Sun., 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Octane Coffee — Westside, 1009-B Marietta St. octanecoffee.com.