Rhys Lee — 'South Velvet' Painting, 2024

'South Velvet' unfolds through Rhys Lee’s expressive interplay of colour, gesture and form. Balancing abstraction and figuration, the painting evokes an atmosphere of quiet contemplation, offering a deeply personal reflection on the human condition.

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Despite a career that spans over 25 years, Rhys Lee still finds it difficult to accurately define his art practice. His works are figurative inasmuch as recognisable faces, characters and objects appear across the canvas, but they are seldom directly representational. Equal parts abstract and impressionistic, with underlying traces of his early career in graffiti art, the works depict his personal thoughts and emotions - contemplations on the human condition that capture the current zeitgeist.

Though he prefers not to over-explain his process, Lee sees himself first and foremost as a colourist - imagery is a means to support the forms, tones and themes he’s exploring. Whether working in a rhythm that is physical and expressive or slow and cathartic, his primary concern is the colour palette and the intuitive application of paint.