Jane Lee is noted for her unconventional methods and approach towards process, materials and techniques, challenging the notion of what constitutes a painting. Through abstract pieces of incredible texture and heavy three-dimensionality, Lee re-examines the relationship between painting and contemporary art, blurring the line between the two and three-dimensional realms in their presentation within spaces. Questioning the history and traditions of Western painting practices, while looking for new aesthetics and visual languages to express her artistic concerns, Lee’s work reflects the ethos of contemporary art situated within the age of transcultural globalisation.

Jane Lee’s first residency with STPI was in 2015, where, in line with her materially-playful painting practice, the artist had teased out the properties of print and paper, working with these mediums for the first time in her oeuvre. The works were presented at her 2016 exhibition with the gallery, entitled Freely, Freely (17 January to 5 March), where Lee invites viewers to meander through a fantastical yet familiar world of birds and nature—universal metaphors for freedom. For her latest residency spanning 2021 to 2022, Lee’s approach underwent yet another shift, which reflected a philosophy that the artist had started to meditate upon in recent years, that of being “in praise of silence”. The works that were produced for this residency explore motifs and materials that speak back to a desire and praise for silence—from crystals as a symbol of a raw, elemental aspect of the world to the cracking of the egg as an emblem of the Beginning of life.

Jane Lee has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Diploma in Fashion from LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. Lee has participated in numerous art fairs and exhibitions across the globe. Notable exhibitions include Lila: Unending Play at Singapore Art Museum in 2023, Red States, a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 2018; Meld, a solo Sundaram Tagore Gallery presentation at Art Basel in 2017; and Freely, Freely at the STPI in 2016, which followed her 2015 residency.

Lee’s work Raw Canvas was showcased at the Singapore Biennale 2008, Collectors’ Stage at the Singapore Art Museum in 2011 and in the Southeast Asia Platform, an exhibition of cutting-edge work from across the region at Art Stage Singapore in 2014. The following year, Lee’s work was selected for Prudential Singapore Eye, one of the largest surveys of Singapore’s contemporary art to date, held at the ArtScience Museum and Medium at Large, a yearlong exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum, where her largescale installation Status, 2009, was acquired for the museum’s permanent collection. In 2015, Lee also participated in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale.

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