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Jennifer J. Lee

Jennifer Lee (b. 1977) paints depictions of found photography often sourced from internet forums and online shopping sites. Her work is startlingly photo realistic, rendered in an intimate scale that invests familiar objects with a psychological depth. Lee portrays photographs with a sharp self-awareness, painting on thick jute burlap that degrades the mechanical process of photography while perversely simulating it. Lee, a semiotician in a visual sense, chooses her subjects for their availability as collective symbolic objects and deploys them in sequences that produce a kind of quasi syntactical language, hinting at meaning but ultimately resolving themselves into an intuitive poetry. Despite their visual swiftness, these paintings are painstakingly constructed in an effort to pull an image apart and then rebuild it. The slowness and transgression of this process is reminiscent of Warhol’s early silent films as well as Vija Celmin’s meditative renderings.

Jennifer J. Lee in T Magazine

Jennifer J. Lee’s work is featured in an article, “The Art World’s Next Big Thing: Tiny Paintings,” by Julia Halperin, published this week in the New York Times T Magazine.

Museum Exhibition

Jennifer J. Lee at MoCA Los Angeles

Jennifer J. Lee is included in Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968 at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA. The exhibition, curated by Anna Katz is "the first large-scale exhibition to reexamine the postwar art movement of photorealism and trace its lineages in art of the present day." The museum exhibition is on view November 23, 2024 through May 4, 2025.

Jennifer J. Lee and Joy Curtis

Joy Curtis and Jennifer J. Lee's solos shows at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery were listed in the February 4, 2019 issue of The New Yorker

news

Jennifer J. Lee in "La Mer imaginaire" at Fondation Carmignac

Jennifer J. Lee has work on view in "La Mer Imaginaire" a group exhibition curated by Chris Sharp at the Fondation Carmignac, France from May 20th to October 17, 2021.

review

Jennifer J. Lee

Rahel Aima writes about the work in Jennifer J. Lee's first show at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery.

news

Jennifer J. Lee in Group Show at the Fondazione ICA Milano

Jennifer J. Lee has three paintings on view in Small Fixations, a group show at the Fondazione ICA Milano centered around small format works of art. The exhibition is open to the public October 28 through December 23, 2022.

museum exhibition

Jennifer J. Lee at the X Museum, Beijing

Hedges, 2019, by Jennifer J. Lee is included in 'Particularities' at the X Museum from September 5 to December 5, 2021. 'Particularities' is a group exhibition about contemporary, small-scale painting. At a time of increasing scale, expansion and general hypertrophy, this exhibition trains its gaze on painting practices that do the exact opposite.

Review

Jennifer J. Lee’s ghostly familiarity

A review of Lee’s 2023 solo show Square Dance by Kyle Hittmeier.

Jennifer J. Lee

b. 1977
lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Education

2010
M.F.A., Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

2009
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME

2000
B.F.A., Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
École nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

Solo Exhibitions

2025
The Falls, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY

2023
Square Dance, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY

2022
Solo Presentation with Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, the Independent Art Fair, New York, NY

2021
Drop Ceiling, The Sunday Painter, London, UK
Planet Caravan, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY

2020
Wallflowers, Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles, CA

2019
Cold Turkey, Lulu/La Masion de Rendez-Vous, Brussels, Belgium
Day Trip, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY

Two-Person Exhibitions

2018
Nowhere, print release and solo exhibition, Pressure Club, Philadelphia, PA

2017
Far Out, with Dana Powell, Castle Drone, Boston, MA
Reminiscing, Pretty Days, curated by Gregory Kalliche and Harry Gould-Harvey, site specific,
Henderson, NC

2015
Jennifer Lee and Terry Young: New Works, The Shop, Pittsburgh, PA

Group Exhibitions

2024
Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
The 7th Wall, Alice Amati Gallery, London, UK

2023
Truth is Stranger, Adler Beatty Gallery, New York, NY
Einstein on the Beach, Super Dakota, Brussels, Belgium
Outdoors, Nowhere, in Nothing, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY

2022
About Painting II, Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Rome, IT
Small Fixations, Fondazione ICA Milano, Milan, IT
A Minor Constellation, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
What is it Like to be a Bat, ADZ, Lisbon, PT
87 Franklin Inaugural, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY
Ecosystems of Relations, Super Dakota, Brussels, BE

2021
Halcyon and On and On, Franz Kaka Gallery, Toronto, ON
La Mer imaginaire, curated by Chris Sharp, Foundation Carmignac, Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles, France (catalogue)

2019
Material Images, Marvin Gardens, Brooklyn, NY
A Cloth Over a Birdcage, Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles, CA
Double Play, curated by Left Field Gallery with The Pit Presents, The Pit, Los Angeles, CA
Last Night I Wore a Costume, curated by Lisa Cooley, LX Arts, New York, NY
The Views, Fisher Parrish, Brooklyn, NY

2018
Italicized Reality, curated by Andy Cross, Sardine Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Sarah Nearer Fuller Flower, curated by Joshua Bienko, C for Courtside, Knoxville, TN
💥🎢☀🏖🌈🐳🌋, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY
The Mushroom Show, curated by Dan Gratz and Letha Wilson, Craryville, NY
Folded Canopy, Central Park Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
FFFFFFiguration, curated by Jonathan Chapline, Nevven Gallery, Göteberg, Sweden
Actually Weird, curated by JJ Manford, Underdonk Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2017
Paper Cuts, curated by Kristian Day, Tripp Gallery, London, UK
Far Out, two-person exhibition with Dana Powell, Castle Drone, Boston, MA
Drawer, FlatFile, Deli Gallery, Queens, NY
Garudge Sale, CANADA, New York, NY
Portals, curated by Ashley Garrett and Anna Ortiz, Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
The Cactus Show, Curated by Dan Gratz and Letha Wilson, Craryville, NY
The Middler Art Fair, The Middler, Queens, NY

2016
Stone Soup Nasty, Orgy Park, Brooklyn, NY
From the Roota to the Toota, Good Enough Gallery, Atlanta, GA
RISE, curated by Lynn Sullivan, Four Letter Word Projects, Brooklyn, NY
The Office, with 2MF, The Knockdown Center, Queens, NY
On the Fence, curated by Craig Poor Monteith and Steve Mykietyn, Casual Art Fair, New York Super Sketchy, with Alleyoop Projects, DCTV, New York, NY
Waze of Seething, with Alexander Barton, GCA Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Blur (Life’s a Gas), Building 32 Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2015
Exchange, Visual Center for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland

2013
Santa’s Car Key Party, Orgy Park, Brooklyn, NY
December’s Letters, Orgy Park, Brooklyn, NY

2012
Kelly’s Eye Club, Orgy Park, Brooklyn, NY
Bushwick Blackout, The Shirey, Brooklyn, NY
BÄTTERKINDEN, curated by Dan Levenson, Triangle Artists Workshop, Brooklyn, NY

2008
Gestures, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA

Curatorial Projects

2020
Heart Murmurs, co-curated with Zuriel Waters, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York

2018
Dirt Life; Frankie Phillips, Dave Choi, Yasamin Keshtkar, co-curated with Zuriel Waters, Orgy Park Tandem, co-curated with Zuriel Waters, Harbor Gallery, New York

2015
Hotel California, 1317 Jefferson, Brooklyn, NY

Bibliography

2025
Halperin, Julia, “The Art World’s Next Big Thing: Tiny Paintings”, New York Times T Magazine, March 7
Behringer, David, “Jennifer J. Lee’s New Paintings on Burlap Are Unbelievable”, Design Milk, February 18
Mothes, Kate, “Loosely Woven Burlap Mimics Digital Pixels in Jennifer J. Lee’s Photorealistic Paintings,” Colossal, February 26

2021
Lavrador, Judicaël, “Peintres de la vie quotidienne”, Beaux Arts Magazine, March

2020
Diehl, Travis, “Jennifer J. Lee’s “Wallflowers””, Art Agenda, October 14

2019
Aima, Rahel, “Jennifer J. Lee,” Art in America, April
Fateman, Joanna, “Jennifer J. Lee / Joy Curtis,” The New Yorker, February 4
Corio, Paul, “Seen in New York,” Painters Table, January

2017
Indrisek, Scott, “A New Platform is Selling Original Artwork by Notable Artists for Under $500,” Artsy, November, 24
Atlas, Anthony, “Consumer Report: Anthony Atlas,” ArtNews, June 25

2016
Kosut, Mary, “We are the Scene: Alternative Art Economies in Bushwick,” Métropolitiques, September 16
Mikhailovskaia, Anna, “The Irony and Sincerity of Jenny Lee,” Arts in Bushwick, June

2010
Curreri, Amanda and Erik Scollon, Color&Color, Issue #2: Black and White, San Francisco, CA

Public Collections

Göteborg Konst, Göteborgs Stad, (Göteborg’s public arts and cultural administration), Sockerbruket 2-4, 414 51 Göteborg, Sweden