Jennifer J. Lee’s New Paintings on Burlap Are Unbelievable

Brooklyn-based painter Jennifer J. Lee’s current exhibition “The Falls” reveals 11 new paintings at Klaus von Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in New York. Lee continues to level-up her technique of painting photorealistically on jute burlap – a fabric that is so coarse and porous that any representational image seems technically impossible, let alone capturing the perfection and resolution of digital images. All of it results in a profound elevation of the every day and invites the viewer to play in a world between pixels and material, illusion and physicality.

Jennifer J. Lee: The Falls. Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, 2025

Lee sources her images from the internet, using her iPad as she paints, thereby purposefully and directly translating glowing pixels into physical brushstrokes. That paint also find a new grid of “real pixels” on the low-thread count jute fabric, where both the digital and physical resolution (often different) can both be sensed.

Jennifer J. Lee, Tennis, 2024

Jennifer J. Lee, Tennis, 2024 (detail)

The newest work in the exhibition “Beach, 2024” measures only 12 by 21 inches and feels like a JPEG image had trouble representing the individual grains of sand – producing slight color glitches. Lee’s translation of that exact effect is now overlaid onto a new crisp grid of thread. Even the open spaces between the threads (that appear like tiny black dots) mimic grains of sand.

Jennifer J. Lee, Beach, 2024

Jennifer J. Lee, Beach, 2024 (detail)

Lee’s work also dances between the real fabric and the represented material of the chosen subject. “Security Mirror”, for example, is a battle (or perfect balance?) between the prickly fibers of the jute and the slick image of a perfectly smooth mirror. While in “Stripes”, the eye oscillates between the real thread count of burlap and the fabric of the image. Everything here is a brilliant and highly-considered choice in both subject, scale and its resulting conversation with the material and technique.

Jennifer J. Lee, Security Mirror, 2024

Jennifer J. Lee, Security Mirror, 2024 (detail)

Jennifer J. Lee, Stripes, 2024

Jennifer J. Lee, Stripes, 2024 (detail)

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a single wall holding 4 paintings of blue jeans. “Lee Jeans” is a sly wink at the artist’s own name on the label, while “Acid Jeans” painstakingly renders the random patterns of an “acid wash” with perfection. Look closer to note that the pants don’t seem to be worn by a person. Several images tease the view of a mannequin or display form above the waistline while they hang slightly stranger than they would on a real body.

Jennifer J. Lee: The Falls. Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, 2025

Jennifer J. Lee, Lee Jeans, 2024

Jennifer J. Lee, Lee Jeans, 2024 (detail)

Jennifer J. Lee, Acid Jeans, 2024

Jennifer J. Lee, Acid Jeans, 2024 (detail)

Lee’s work continues to question, reveal, and challenge the speed and experience of images we consume on a daily basis. Her paintings are both fully familiar and totally strange – inviting us to slow down, rethink the possible, and have a very real and profound experience with a digital image made “real” through an unrelenting and unbelievable dedication.

Jennifer J. Lee: The Falls. Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, 2025

Jennifer J. Lee’s “The Falls” is on view at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in New York through February 22nd, 2025. And if you’re in Los Angeles, you can check out several of Lee’s paintings that are currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in the group exhibition “Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968”.

WHAT: Jennifer J. Lee “The Falls”
WHERE: Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, 87 Franklin St, New York City, New York
WHEN: January 10 – February 22, 2025

All full artwork and installation images courtesy the artist and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York.
Detail images by author, David Behringer.