CHRONOLOGY
Lee Milan Spano: A Chronology
1967 Lee Milan Spano was born in Sydney, Australia. His father was from the Eolie Islands, Italy. His mother was from a town south of Bremen, Germany.
1978 Began to write poetry and play with cameras around the age of eleven. He was later published in local magazines and newspapers. Although he did these things separately, he saw them as part of the same thing- looking for something behind the obvious, searching for higher meanings and abstractions.
1988 Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), University of Sydney, Australia majoring in Philosophy, with minors in Psychology and Mathematics. He was asked to complete honours study, but decided to focus on Law.
1990 Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), University of Sydney. Commenced legal practice in Sydney. Privately, he continued to photograph and study creative and artistic areas, especially Art History.
1992 Travelled extensively throughout Europe to trace his diverse ancestorial lines and to photograph. Artistic cities, such as Paris, Florence and Venice touched him in a profound way. He began to really see and feel the power of light. He began to question and see through history- to look for things that connect, not separate us. He had early glimpses of the idea of Unity- an idea prevalent in the Renaissance, a period he still studies and loves.
1999 Master of Laws (LL.M.), University of Sydney. He quite enjoyed post graduate study mainly because of its creative nature- dealing with theoretical and practical problems, innovations and solutions. Moved from Sydney to a semi-rural area in the Brisbane – Gold Coast Corridor. Here he found the space and time to, just be. The diverse landscape and history acted as a blank canvas and a white page. He felt a special sense of freedom and purpose. He picked up his camera again.
2000 Undertook deeper studies and work in Photography, Art and Art History. Mainly self-taught, he later undertook some certificate courses, and engaged with several associations and providers, such as: Nikon Australia, the Australian College of Journalism, Australian Photographic Society, Queensland Centre for Photography, the Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane, and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York.
2003 Finished practising law, and decided to focus on Photography, Creativity and Art. Opened his arts and creative practice, which included educational materials and workshops.
2006 First public exhibitions in Queensland, Australia. First private sales of his Fine Art Photography works.
2008 Commenced a Ph.D. in Law, dealing with the issue of Climate Change and Sustainability. Abandoned it in 2009 feeling disillusioned, and that something profound was missing.
2009 For the next few years he continued searching. He worked on business projects in a number of areas, including: the Financial Markets, Technology and Education. In particular, he researched and built investing, hedging and trading systems in the markets. He acquired significant knowledge concerning Creativity and the power of the creative mind. In the background, he continued to write poetry, and build his body of work in Fine Art Photography.
2020 In the wake of COVID-19, and a journey to Tasmania, Australia in 2019, he decided to focus the bulk of his time on Fine Art Photography, and closely aligned areas, including Creativity, and emerging technologies, such as Blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT).
2021 A new website was launched: www.leespano.com . He identified the lifelong characteristics of Unity and Light Poetry, and created the Fibano Poetic Format to accompany works. This format draws on mathematics and structures found across the arts. He is currently looking to find new spaces in Fine Art Photography. For instance, through abstraction, inspired by the work of Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky and others.
2022 A movement towards higher works, particularly abstraction, and beyond abstraction. Diagnosed with a serious medical condition. This facilitated the clarity of purpose- Art to help Healing and Consciousness. The unifying principle of AHC. In the time he has left, Lee has a humble focus on Serving others, and helping people Rise to do the same.
"I believe that art is the only form of activity in which man shows himself to be a true individual, and is capable of going beyond the animal state, because art is an outlet to those regions which are not ruled by time and space. To live is to believe." – Marcel Duchamp.
