Embrace

Credit line: Collection of SMU

Jane Lee (b. 1963, Singapore) is best known for her inventive techniques and innovative use of materials. She explores the very nature of the way paintings are constructed by treating the components of a painting—stretcher, canvas, and the paint itself—in new ways.

Employing the processes of layering, tearing, rolling, weaving, and mixing paint, among others, Jane Lee reconfigures the mediums of paint and painting to create artworks that traverse the two-dimensional and three-dimensional. The surfaces of her paintings are highly tactile and sensuous, often dimensional enough to be considered wall-based sculptures. In some cases, Lee dispenses with canvas altogether extruding acrylic paint directly onto wooden stretchers, which results in a hollow, three-dimensional object, with the paint at the bottom seemingly giving in to gravity. Many of her works appear to move: they fall, unroll, hang or slide.