Leland Lee was born on May 29, 1989 of a Taiwanese American family in Los Angeles, California. He currently resides in Taipei, Taiwan.
 | | Leland and his work "Discus" (2007) |
At about 18 months of age, his parents noticed a drastic change in Leland's behavior. He went from being an interactive, verbal child to a whinny and crying toddler who would throw a temper tantrums for no apparent reason. Most troubling of all was the fact that he had stopped communicating and regressed into a state of non-responsiveness and reclusion. Because of this dramatic deterioration in his developmental state, his parents took immediate action by seeking expert help. After numerous diagnostics and testing, the experts at various medical institutions confirmed Leland to be autistic. Hence, Leland's life long battle with Autism began.
 | | Leland's drawing at 4 years of age |
Leland's parents first noticed his interests in arts when he was about four years old. The picture above is one of Leland's earliest drawings. While this drawing looked like the work of a typical four year old, Leland would produce them out in large quantities. Over a span of a few months, several hundreds of these drawings were made. He made each drawing with slight variations and no two were exactly alike. His parents were very concerned with his obsessive and perseverous behavior in making those sketches. They focused their efforts on providing therapies and treatments for Leland. It wasn't until Leland was eight years old when his talents began to be noticed.
The experts from Leland's school district found out about Leland's talent and came to evaluate him. They asked him to replicate some of the renaissance masterpieces during an evaluation session. With relative ease, Leland recreated them with amazing likeness. The images below showed some of the replicas Leland produced at age nine.
Leland seemed to have a photographic memory for some of the things he saw. Whether a scene from a cartoon show, an activity at a family outing, or a masterpiece from an art exhibition, Leland has the ability to capture the images in his mind and later replicate them with remarkable detail and depth in his drawings. The pictures below display some of the pieces Leland produced after coming home from weekend activities. These drawings were made between the ages of eight and twelve.
 | |  | | Bicycle Ride | | Glory of Christmas Show |  | |  | | Roller Coaster Ride | | Visiting Dinosaur Museum |
Leland's talent goes far beyond his ability to replicate. The drawing on the left illustrates his inventiveness. In this drawing, he fused two of his favorite subjects: a cowboy and a motorcycle. He also created a motorcycle hitch for towing a horse trailer.
 | | Motorcycle with a trailer |
Another aspect of Leland's creativity can be seen in the area of personalized interpretation. The paintings below illustrate this trait. He would, for example, take an original version of Van Gogh's Bedroom (left) and substitute the colors with his own coloring scheme (center), or create his own version of a bedroom along a similar theme (right).
 |  |  | | original version | color variation | new creation |
Leland also has a tendency to create different styles of similar paintings. Below are three distinctive styles of cowboys and horses.
 |  |  | | front view style | silhouette style | rear view style |
The drawings below provide a chronological perspective of Leland's development in arts. This set of artworks follows his age progression from about 8-9 (left), to 10-12 (center), to 14-15 (right).
- Progression of motorcycle drawings
 |  |  | | earliest sketches ('98) | Wild Ride ('01) | Honda ('04) |
- Progression of human figures
 |  |  | | Man on A Cross ('97) | Foot Race ('01) | Too Loud ('04) |
- Progression of abstract paintings
 |  |  | | Crying ('96) | Mask ('99) | Tower ('04) |
The most remarkable aspect of Leland's art is his unique perception of the world. What Leland lacks in verbal communication skills, God makes it up by giving him an exceptional visual acuity and vivid imagination. As Leland faces various challenges in life, art becomes an important means of communication for him. He protrays the state of his inner world through his artwork. Rich textures and bold colors become the manifestations of his inner being and trademark of his artwork. Leland is inseparable with arts; he draws and paints just about everywhere he goes. Whether he is working on a large size canvas or doodling in his sketchbooks, he is always passionate about his creations.
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