Deanna Lee is an artist based in New York City. Lee utilizes thick, gestural line to render illusionistic layers and textures that suggest both aquatic forms and earthen environments. The artist’s refined use of the color palette allows her work to subtly reference evolving ecosystems while renewing the connection between abstract painting and landscape.

A-mare (2011) captures an eloquent suspension of indigo and sky blue within a sharp vertical perspective. Bordered with light hues of yellow and pink, the color contrasts do not clash but create an even-flowing movement that courses throughout the composition. Cyan and pure blue tumble together, in Dove (2011), above a mass of lyrical black lines that braid together before resting against a vibrant, fuchsia background. Lee’s illusion of three-dimensional depth is replaced by the appearance of high volume in Blacklight 5 (2013), wherein a series of interchanging red, pink, yellow and black lines stack upon one another. The artist’s ink-on-vellum drawings portray biomorphic forms that appear to be suspended in space. The twists and turns seen in each suggest a life within abstraction while alluding to sculptural form.

As a descendant of parents who emigrated from China and Taiwan, Lee is influenced by the art history of China, Japan and Tibet. Deanna Lee makes the calligraphic line a central component within her art and creates an array of subjective experiences that are rendered through lively combinations of color.

Deanna Lee has exhibited nationally and internationally. During 2013 Lee has participated in several group shows, including “Beasts & Bodies” at Schema Projects in Brooklyn, New York, and “Draw(n) Out” at the George Mason University Fine Art Gallery located in Fairfax, Virginia. In 2012 the Robert Henry Contemporary Gallery, in Brooklyn, New York, gave the artist a solo show, while the Blank Space Gallery in New York City included her work in a group show titled “Transformation.” In 2011 the artist participated in a two-person show hosted by the Lake George Arts Project in Lake George, New York. During the same year the Earlville Opera House, located in Earlville, New York, presented a solo show of work by the artist.

In 2012 Deanna Lee was the recipient of a residency fellowship from the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts and a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. She received three awards in 2004: the BRIC Media Fellowship in Brooklyn, the Millay Colony for Arts Residency in Austerlitz, New York, and the Manhattan Graphics Center Scholarship. In 2005 the artist received a travel grant to Cambodia and Vietnam from the Asia Society.