Adam Lee’s recent work ties together narratives of shelter, pilgrimage, and an itinerant, nomadic sense of home. His works act like votive objects, touching on themes of memory and loss underpinned by a personal and corporeal transcendence. Lee builds worlds where allegory and atmosphere coalesce to suggest a highly personal outlook informed by collective folklore and legend.
Adam Lee is represented by STATION
Adam LeeOver the last two years I’ve been working on five large paintings to be shown as part of the triennial, imbedding myself in the unfolding world of these paintings during the on again/off again lockdowns and pandemic life we’ve all been living through. They’ve felt like wonderful places of respite and solitude during these strange days, the process of making them utterly exhausting and entirely invigorating at the same time.
To accompany these paintings, I commissioned five artisans and crafters local to the Kyneton area to hand make five ‘prayer blankets’. These act as objects which sit in conversation with the paintings and will be exhibited in the centre of Kyneton, creating a room akin to what one might call a ‘sacred’ space. I always envisioned an experience where, upon entering the space, the viewer might become immediately more aware of their own body within its surroundings, entering a kind of ‘quietening within’, leading to different kinds of interaction with the artworks than that of the familiar gallery/museum spaces. It feels now more than ever, with the pressures of living through a pandemic, that perhaps these types of spaces and experiences are more intensely needed.
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