Splash is a development from Lee Wen's his seminal “Yellow Man” series of works that began in the early 1990s, exploring the themes of identity and cross-cultural issues. Part of Lee's ongoing series “Journey of a Yellow Man”, this body of Lee's work can be seen as the artist's strategy of critique that situates Chinese identity across a wide range of contexts to raise questions about identity and stereotypical impressions of culture and society. Splash was made in part, as a response to the ban on the funding of performance art from 1994 to 2003, when artists started incorporating photography and video installations of their performances in their artwork as a way of circumventing restrictions on live performances. One of Singapore's pioneering artists in the contemporary art scene, Lee is a member of The Artists Village (TAV) and part of the Black Market performance collective. An active contributor to Singapore performance festivals such as R.I.T.E.S. - Rooted in the Ephemeral Speak (2009), and the Future of Imagination international performance art event, Lee has also taken part in important international exhibitions such as the 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial (1999), Havana Biennial (1997) and the Kwangju Biennale (1995). Lee was awarded the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to the development of Contemporary Art in Singapore in 2005.
