Jennifer J. Lee

Jennifer Lee's oil paintings are not brought into being on typical canvas, she weaves jute into a coarse burlap to create stunning and highly realistic pieces based on images she finds on internet forums and online shopping websites. The rough texture of the jute forces the image into a low-resolution representation as quasi-photorealistic and rendered on a small scale, giving everyday objects a psychological depth and undermining the mechanical aspect of photography while paradoxically mimicking it. As a visual semiotician, Lee selects her subjects for their status as symbolic objects and presents them in sequences that form a quasi-syntactical language. These sequences imply meaning but ultimately result in an intuitive form of poetry. Despite their visual fluidity, Lee's paintings are the result of a meticulous process that involves breaking down an image and rebuilding it. This slow and deliberate process is reminiscent of Andy Warhol's early silent films and Vija Celmin's meditative renderings.