Inspired Eating Spaces
David Lee’s latest mural explodes from the south wall at Food + Beer’s new location in the Rosemary District, stretching from the chair rail up to the air conditioning duct. The first thing that leaps out at you (literally) is a meathook-clawed tiger in mid-pounce. Then your eyes immediately find the Pierrot clown posing in the bottom right corner, arms outstretched in welcome. (Or is he really saying: Hey! ... You gonna eat that?)
Lee smiles to hear his work compared to the lurid extravagance of a vintage circus billboard. That’s precisely what he was going for with diners’ first impression of the Food + Beer project. But look closer: Spot a callout to the old Ace Theater; a portrait of Reverend Lewis Colson, the city’s first African American settler; the original Bethlehem Baptist Church, which stood at the corner of Seventh and Central from 1899 to 1973; and your eyes open to this piece as more than an homage to Sarasota’s circus heritage. It’s a tribute to Overtown, Sarasota’s first Black neighborhood.
“I suggested this mural to [Food + Beer owners Mike Whalen and Casey Daniels] because it’s in a historic area of Sarasota, so I said, ‘Let’s do something that recognizes that history,’” Lee says. Local favorites including Owen’s Fish Camp, Calusa Brewing, El Melvin, The Mable, and Bavaro’s Pizza have all called on Lee to imbue their establishments with the aura only a true sense of place can conjure.
Lee’s father brought him up in sign painting. Rather than pursue a formal art education, he developed his fine brushwork and muscular style in the “lowbrow” art world of custom hot rods and motorcycles. The territory came with a lifestyle just as high-octane as the machines Lee worked on. After recovering from open heart surgery in 2013, Lee made a promise to himself to keep making art, turning away from chrome and onto canvas.
Many of Lee’s most arresting pieces feature top-of-the-food-chain predators—especially sharks, which have fascinated Lee since grade school.
“Anything that is dangerous or even sinister, human or otherwise, is very appealing,” Lee says, “and capturing the feeling of tension or anxiety they cause through imagery is very satisfying to me.”
He adds, “I think that tension is what limits the appeal of my paintings to a select few.” While he aspires to feature his work in fine-art galleries, he’s adamant about spaces being the right fit for his creations.
When Lee picks up a brush in the sanctum of his studio, he’s not thinking about how anyone will react to what emerges from the blankness before him. He paints purely for himself. The frostbitten feeling in his hands—neuropathy lingering from chemotherapy that helped him beat colon cancer this year—fades into the background.
“Painting is such a distraction that I don’t feel it until it really starts to hurt, and I’ll have to take a little bit of a break,” he says. And he’s made new promises to himself and his art.
“When I was told I had cancer, my response was: I haven’t even been anywhere,” Lee says. In this chapter of his story, Lee wants to seek humility and inspiration in the galleries of Paris and Rome.
“We don’t know how long we’re here,” Lee says. “Cancer hasn’t really changed my artwork, but it’s changed me to where I want to travel more, paint more, and be a little more thankful for what I have.”
