NYAB Event - Kristina Lee “14 Paintings”

Kristina Lee “14 Paintings”

Garis & Hahn

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Garis & Hahn presents 14 Paintings, an exhibition of 14 new paintings by Kristina Lee, marking the artist’s first solo show following her participation in Garis & Hahn’s 2013 survey group exhibition, Dying on Stage: New Pain ting in New York. Those familiar with the artist’s work will recognize the loose brushwork, offhanded composition and muted color palette piqued by a smattering of deep, bold hues that defines her body of work. The series of work in 14 Paintings is inspire d by the artist’s connection to the number, around which she developed a set of seemingly simplistic parameters that developed in complexity over time. Lee began the 14 Paintings series after relocating to her new studio and looking for an exercise that would provide clear factors to measure and focus her work by in the new space. The idea to paint 14 paintings compositionally using the number 14 gave her a clear goal and end to the project; she would be finished when she painted her 14th canvas. The series of paintings combine recurring motifs for Lee, including palm leaves, silhouettes of body parts, linear markings and swaths of color, with the number 14 appearing sometimes as a focal point, sometimes as an almost signature, to varying degrees of camouflage in each piece. It’s also worth considering that Lee recycled the canvases she used for the series, with each representing a re - do of some past work by the artist. The number itself has multiple connections to the artist as it reflects the year of the paintings’ creation (2014), and her birthday, January 14th, as well as the year 1914, a personally inspiring period of art history to Lee as the height of non - figurative Cubist works and year Matisse painted his View of Notre Dame , a seminal work for Lee .