Transforming human and beast: Hybridization and diasporic identities in Daniel Lee’s art

China-born and Taiwan-educated artist Daniel Lee has been based in New York since the early 1990s. He became internationally well known for his 1993 series Manimals, which comprised hybridized forms of humans and the signs of the twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac. Through utilizing technology and computer programs, Lee creates powerful images and videos with a strong reference to his cultural heritage and the symbols of modern life. Manimals resembles different personalities through hybridized images of people and animals, and this kind of artistic technique demonstrates the artist’s sense of nostalgia towards his homeland and the roots of his culture. The concept of hybridity has been widely argued by Homi Bhabha, and it can be visualized in the transformation of conflicting, yet powerful, images by Lee. In 2004, Lee created the series Harvest, through which he personified different farm animals as musicians, dancers and performers who seemed to be having a party. Lee manifests his diasporic identities and cultural heritage in his art, but it is only in recent years that he has gradually begun to dilute the references to oriental aesthetics in his work. With a theoretical consideration of hybridity and diasporic studies, this article explores the different themes throughout his career as an artist and also examines selected series of his works.