Past Solo Exhibition
Jane Lee: In Praise of Silence 寂靜在說話 29.07.2023 — 03.09.2023
Information
Event has ended
29 July – 3 September 2023
About The Exhibition
Silence is our very being, the core of our existence.
Words cannot bring us this experience.
Only through Silence, when one is able to keep quiet, will the innermost speak.
~ Jane Lee
The title of the exhibition, In Praise of Silence, is informed and inspired by novelist Junichiro Tanizaki (1886–1965)’s meditation on Japanese aesthetics, In Praise of Shadows. In this wide-ranging text, Tanizaki speaks about how darkness and shadow are richly suggestive, conferring qualities of mystery and antiquity, and how “in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway”. As such, shadows and darkness help us “to look deep into ourselves to our own inhabitation of the world”, an idea that is deeply resonant with Lee’s preoccupations in this exhibition.
In Praise of Silence is Jane Lee’s second residency exhibition with STPI, and an opportunity to take stock of an unfolding chapter in Lee’s practice—one characterized by an inward turn, and a shift towards what the artist describes as ‘Eastern’ aesthetics, marked by a certain spareness, austerity of expression, and a sense of introspection.
– Tan Siuli, exhibition cutator
About the artist
Jane Lee
Residencies in 2015, 2018, 2020, 2022
Jane Lee (1963, born and based in Singapore) explores how the medium of painting can challenge classical Western art historical traditions, while embracing emotional states and uncovering traces of personal identity. Rising to prominence in the 2000s, Lee’s enduring experimentation with paint—underpinned by a play between spontaneity and precision—has resulted in a highly tactile body of work that blurs the line between painting and sculpture.
In being located between two and three dimensions, Lee’s artistic process involves a deconstruction of the material constituents of painting—stretcher, canvas, paint—and the use of miscellaneous items such as baking tools and syringes to apply paint across surfaces, often in rigorous and expressive gestures. This imbues her paintings with a visceral, spatial presence, liberating them from a purely representational function. Early works such as Raw Canvas and Status (2008) demonstrate how this textural accumulation of paint reveals unexpected colours and a sense of movement, as the canvases and layers appear to bulge, crawl, melt and droop across walls to interact with surrounding architecture. In her recent Where Is Painting (2022) series, Lee explored notions of reduction and emptiness that characterise East Asian landscape painting, opting for the spontaneous use of her bare hands to create impasto works that evoke abstract, monochromatic naturescapes.
The artist obtained her BFA from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Notable exhibitions include Lila (2023), Singapore Art Museum; Nowhere (2019), National Gallery Singapore; Red States (2018), Hong Kong Arts Centre; Frontiers Reimagined (2015), (Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale) Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice; Fabrication (2011), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Collectors Stage (2011), Singapore Art Museum; and Code Share (2009), The Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including Wonder (2008), 2nd Singapore Biennale.
Lee has had a long relationship with STPI, resulting in multiple residencies in 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2022. Her 2015 and 2022 residencies culminated in the exhibitions Freely, Freely (2016) and In Praise of Silence 寂靜在說話 (2023) respectively.
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