John Lee - Hiding in Broad Daylight

What is it that makes a landscape a landscape, a still life a still life, and an interior an interior? How are these kinds of paintings defined? By the kinds of objects in them? By the kind of atmosphere? By the expansiveness of the space? For John Lee, whose work is currently on view at Bowery Gallery, it is both all and none of these things. 

When I asked Lee to tell me a little about his latest body of work, he shared, “I did not want paintings that fit neatly into a category such as still life, landscape, figure, or portraiture. I think the paintings become a bit of a mixture, acting as an organic combination of landscape, interior, still life, and self-portraiture. There are no characters and no background, nothing in the painting exists in isolation.”

This message is conveyed lucidly through the whole show, itself. What contributes to them acting as landscapes is the uninterrupted interior space. With the exception of exclusively using natural light, there's no reference to the exterior, neither landscape through windows nor open doors that allude to other interior spaces. In this way, spaces that are represented in these paintings are an examination of the terrains and scapes that are found within his studio-space--the studioscape. It is the superpower of perceptual painters like John Lee to be able to infuse tabletops covered with boxes, lampshades, and carts with the mystery of an abandoned, empty warehouse, like in “Under the Fitted Sheet”.

Lee’s show is very much a window into the interior life of a painter. In his correspondence to me he shared, “It is important to me that the subject of each painting, each view that I painted, was discovered while spending time in my studio. I would be working on a painting and then at one point during the process I would happen to turn my head and see another view that seemed special and exciting. This view would eventually become the next painting.” Picture it: it has been several weeks of working on one painting, while maybe also tinkering with three others. Occasional pauses for studies of parts of the scene, then returning to the painting to make adjustments. Etc. Then one day, the artist enters the studio. Closes the door. Sits down to meticulously examine and adjust the painting again. But first, the painter takes a moment and looks up and maybe over to the right, and discovers the subject of their very next painting: an assortment of faded pastel boxes, the rich orange of the side plane of a wooden table, and an old brown coat rack passing right through the center of that table. The pastel boxes hang against the modulating purples and gray tones of the wall behind them, like mini Rothkos. Their juxtaposition: a somewhat organized chaos of boxes and books and a half-globe-thing underneath the table in dull grays and browns. 

Many of his paintings are from a perspective that is low to the ground, like the one shown above (Below Sea Level), and this decision was intentional. Lee states, “I was inspired by that particular viewpoint rather than from a standing point of view, which I felt expressed a more dominating and utilitarian view of standing over the table tops. I was excited more by looking under the tables with the color of the spaces and hazy shadows underneath the tables. I also felt this was more of a child’s point of view, with the lower vantage point, and that it spoke to a slower meditative experience with the subject.” Others like this are Quiet Zoo and Not for Domestic Use.

Lee states, “I also want the challenge of making interiors that do not have an exit or window.   One wall in the studio is comprised completely of windows, but I don’t find that view outside of the windows interesting.  I also didn’t want to rely on the compositional structures with the framing window or doorway shapes, or the strong contrast of light and shadow. There are many shadows in the paintings that I find to be very beautiful, but they are not prominent or stark.” 

While he closes off the physical space in order to contain his studio scenes, he creates many passages through, into, and out of his compositions with the low positioning of his perspective in relation to the stacks of rectangular stuff and open vessels that are often on top of and beneath tables. I don’t want to end this without returning to part of his quote from above, where he states that the paintings are “acting as an organic combination of landscape, interior, still life, and self-portraiture.” This stuff of his studio–these amalgamated studioscapes–are not just the place where the artist works, they are also a representation of the painter-self.

This beautiful show is on view from June 18 until July 6, with the opening on Thursday, June 20 from 6-8pm. 

-Eileen Mooney.