Sam Houston (Colonneh) 2025 by Lee Beach

In Sam Houston (Colonneh), Lee Beach reimagines the legacy of the American political icon through a lenticular portrait that transforms with the viewer’s movement. One perspective presents Houston as a formal statesman; another destabilizes that image, exposing the tension between authority, mythology, and constructed identity.

Using the shifting surface of the print as both medium and metaphor, Beach examines how public figures are continuously rewritten through politics, performance, and collective memory. As the viewer changes position, the portrait itself changes — revealing history not as fixed truth, but as a moving and contested narrative.

About the artist

A fourth-generation El Pasoan, Lee Beach draws inspiration from the cultural rhythm of the El Paso–Juárez border. His work explores how identity is shaped through labor, movement, and memory, where everyday symbols evolve into carriers of meaning—blending pop art aesthetics with mixed media. Beach transforms familiar imagery into compositions that balance tension, endurance, and restraint.