01/08/2022
Narrated by Nadia
When we think about paintings, they are often 2-dimensional, flat works on canvas. Artist Jane Lee, however, has a different idea of what painting can be! This work here is called Turned Out II (2011). It uses paint, it uses canvas, but this is not at all like a traditional painting! How is it different?
Unlike regular, flat canvases, it looks like Lee has painted canvas material red, but then cut the fabric into long strips before coiling them up into a roll! What does this do to the painting? The coils are not all the same height, resulting in different shadows on the work. The parts that stick out catch the light and appear lighter to us, and the parts that are sunken in are shadowy and look darker. Do you know where else we see these characteristics? We find them in sculptures!
Jane Lee has also left some strips of fabric loose and uncoiled - you can see these strips dangling beneath the the work, like a spool of thread unravelling! This acts like a little clue as to how the work was made, so we don't think it's all painted onto a circular frame.
Jane Lee often creates works that can be called sculptural paintings - using 3D techniques to create artworks, rather than typical brushwork we see in traditional paintings. Would you say this is more like a sculpture, or can this still be called a painting?
