Sarah Lee
Sarah Lee (b. 1988) is an artist based in New York City. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and an MFA from the same institution in 2017.
Lee’s work has been exhibited in Albertz Benda in New York, Stems Gallery in Paris, PMAM in London, 1969 Gallery in New York, Bill Brady in Los Angeles, Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles, Carl Kostyal in Milan and ATM Gallery in New York.
Bony Ramirez
Craig Taylor
Dabin Ahn
Drew Dodge
Ina Jang
Ji Woo Kim
Jin Jeong
KangHee Kim
Sarah Lee
Shuyi Cao
Shyama Golden
Sophia Heymans
Yoora Lee
Yujie Li
Yuri Yuan
Pond under the Moonlight, 2024, Oil on canvas
Image credit: © 2024 Christie’s Images Ltd.
Image credit: © 2024 Christie’s Images Ltd.
Black Swan, 2023, Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist.
Courtesy of the artist.
memory/
I was a shy kid. I struggled with talking to strangers and sharing my emotions with others. Although I grew up in a loving family, emotional support was not a language my parents spoke. Instead, they showed their love by teaching me to be strong and independent, believing that toughness was the best way to prepare me for life’s challenges. As I got older, I came to believe that showing emotion was a sign of weakness. To protect myself, I built a wall around my feelings, keeping my vulnerability hidden.
As a child, I loved nature and animals because I could be myself without worrying about being judged or showing weakness. My house was like a zoo—I raised hamsters, baby chicks, bunnies, birds, and turtles. When I became a teenager, I started watching nature documentaries and collecting images of wildlife. Being around animals made me feel safe. Their constant presence was always comforting to me.
I'm drawn to landscapes where fear and safety coexist. I've been strangely comforted by bad weather, such as snowstorms and thunderstorms. Even if the stormy weather felt treacherous, I felt a sense of relief being inside, protected against the lightning and rain. I began investigating these unsettling yet comforting images and emotions in my work.
line/
My first painting in art school began as pure abstraction. I was more focused on color studies and building atmosphere and mood through form and color. I still follow a similar process. Instead of making sketches, I premix all of my colors and develop the atmosphere of the work first. I think about abstract senses, like the scent of the air, humidity, or temperature as starting points for my images and palette.My process begins with collecting images. I pull stills from nature documentaries, references from texts or the internet, and photographs. As a lifelong city dweller, I like to fantasize about nature. I enjoy fictional environments and collect images from post-apocalyptic films or take inspiration from science fiction. I recently saw The Empire of Light by René Magritte and loved how it merges day and night. I like to reference rare and imaginary natural phenomena.
When I look through my image archives, I search for those rare and precious moments where humans connect with nature. These might include rainbows, the Northern Lights, or the full moon. In Korea, there's a myth that if you make a wish upon a full moon, your wish will come true. I'm interested in how people emotionally connect with these mysterious and uncertain moments in nature. They spark people’s imaginations and inspire stories that pass down through generations. In a past show, I referenced a meteor storm from 1833, which filled the sky of New York with thousands of shooting stars. The spectators thought the world was ending, but they were so mesmerized that they immortalized that image in illustrations and stories. I’m fascinated by that moment because discomfort is needed to access its beauty. More than the image of the shooting stars themselves, I like to imagine the sense of awe that the people must have felt, watching starlight fall from the sky. I sit in that unease to activate my imagination.
color/
I think of my paintings as a backdrop to a story or stage. I often leave these stages empty, but sometimes I like to hide hints of life, like a pair of cat's eyes peeking from a distance or a tiny sprout pushing through the snow. These little details, even though they might be easy to miss at first glance, can change the entire mood of the scene and become the starting point for a story. I started painting landscapes during the pandemic. It was a time of intense isolation, and I wanted to convey that absence, uncertainty, and darkness. Empty landscapes offered a way to express the loneliness of that moment and served as my emotional outlet. The smoothness in my paintings comes from my focus on capturing the atmosphere of the scene. Since I don't paint landscapes from direct observation, they often don't look entirely realistic. The trees and mountains are rounded and tilted, almost as if they're shaped by the direction of the wind. I let the natural elements bend and dance in ways that enhance the overall mood I'm trying to make. My work is more about using those natural features to serve the atmosphere and emotion of the image.
I want my paintings to represent the quiet before the storm. I paint peaceful and quiet scenes imbued with suspense. There are cinematic elements in the image that build tension. I often paint blue night scenes, since darkness always holds a sense of danger. In my paintings, the moonlight eerily filters through the landscape, or a mysterious glow lights up the forest. There is a sense that you cannot fully know or understand this place.
When I see something truly mesmerizing, I often feel a bit anxious. Looking up at a sky full of stars is breathtaking but also scary. The vastness makes me feel small and insignificant, reminding me how much is beyond my understanding. I'm both scared of uncertainty and fascinated by it. I feel there's a connection between fear and beauty.
Gabrielle Luu is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and the Editor-in-Chief of Civil Art.