Harlem artist Cecil W. Lee to present 25‑year retrospective at Dwyer Cultural Center

Harlem artist Cecil W. Lee will open a 25‑year retrospective at the Dwyer Cultural Center on August 13, showcasing work that spans photography, digital art, poetry and music. The exhibition highlights his long‑developed philosophy, Computer Evolved Art, which positions the computer as a tool guided by human intent.

Harlem artist Cecil W. Lee’s Retrospective Covers Work From 1999 to 2025

The exhibition features pieces created between 1999 and 2025 and appears alongside work by Eric Engles and Norma Lithgow. According to the press release, the show “spans photography, art, poetry, and short story. It will also showcase music under a single guiding idea he calls Computer Evolved Art.”

Event Details

The opening reception is scheduled for

• Thursday, August 13, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
• Dwyer Cultural Center at 309 West 123rd Street / Ruby Dee Place in Harlem

Weekly viewing hours run

• Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m.
• Wednesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. and by appointment

Philosophy Rooted in Early Digital Experimentation

Lee coined Computer Evolved Art in the late 1990s as a response to labels such as “computer art,” “generated art,” and modern “AI art.”

His creative path began in the early 1990s on AOL in a chat room called The Ebony Room, where he wrote poems on request under the name “See Lee.”

Harlem artist Cecil W. Lee’s Music and Digital Art Built Through Layered Process

Lee later transformed those poems into digitally produced music under Request A Poem, which will accompany the exhibition as an added dimension. Lee explains that his process moves “the way a signal travels,” shifting one idea through multiple layers until it becomes something new.

“A request became a poem, a poem became a lyric, a lyric became a song,” he says. “The same signal, run through enough layers, became a book.”

New Speculative Fiction Release

The exhibition arrives alongside Lee’s speculative fiction book, Obsession With Change, which explores futures shaped by genetic editing, robotic artistry and augmented consciousness.

Lee describes the work as “part fiction, part interview, part visual composition.” He says it follows “individuals and intelligent machines navigating worlds where human and machine identities increasingly overlap.”