Jane Lee: Taking Flight

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.

Jane Lee, ‘Trust’, 2019

The artist collaborates closely with STPI, having multiple artistic experimentations with the creative workshop over the years. With the team, Lee departed from abstraction and painting to discover print and paper, stretching the possibilities by combining various materials to produce dynamic installation works, as she considers a narrative of entrapment and freedom while developing visual metaphors in her oeuvre for the first time, such as birds and nature.

“Birds make me think about how many people never get the freedom to do what they want to do. While we are often told freedom is our birthright, we are often trapped doing things we do not want to do.” – Jane Lee

Jane Lee, ‘Freely, Freely’ (2016)

This culminated in her solo exhibition with STPI gallery, Freely, Freely (2016) where print and paper are inventively moulded towards figurative forms to produce a fantastical yet familiar world that explores freedom in flight and the natural world.

Jane Lee, (left) ‘Life Series – One Ocean #ii’, (right) ‘Life Series – One Ocean #i’, 2020

The motifs of birds and nature are carried forward in her latest series of works (2019-2020), where the artist continues to push the possibilities of paper’s materiality through her treatment of the material as a sculptural substance rather than a two-dimensional base. Debuting for the first time in this Online Viewing Room, they further her keen exploration of birds and nature as allegorical forms for freedom and entrapment, as well as extending her technical virtuosity from paint to that of paper. This spirit of imaginativeness when it comes to innovating in artistic processes resonates throughout Lee’s widely acclaimed practice.

Visit our Artsy Viewing Room to view all available artworks here.

Exhibitions at STPI

The works of Jane Lee were presented at these STPI exhibitions:

Strange Forms of Life (2020)
• Read an interview with Jane Lee, conducted by Guest Curator Guo-Liang Tan, on the occasion of the exhibition here.

Jane Lee: Freely, Freely (2016)

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Publication and Merchandise

The catalogue ‘Jane Lee: Freely, Freely’, was published on the occasion of her solo exhibition with STPI. It contains an essays by Tony Godfrey and June Yap.

View this, as well as other merchandise, at The Corner Shop here.

STPI Creative Workshop & Gallery

“Birds make me think about how many people never get the freedom to do what they want to do. While we are often told freedom is our birthright, we are often trapped doing things we do not want to do.” – Jane Lee

Exhibitions at STPI

Watch

Publication and Merchandise

Read more about the artist and her time at STPI