Image: Albertz Benda, New York
Albertz Benda will present ‘Deeper’, Sarah Lee’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, in New York from 10 September to 10 October 2026.
The exhibition introduces a new body of paintings in which Lee shifts her focus from nightscapes to waterscapes. The works depict no humans, instead engaging water’s passage between solid, mist and liquid states, as well as movement from transparent shallows to greater depths.
Lee uses varying paint densities and textures to absorb, reflect and transmit light. Layered brushwork and saturations of blue, from ultramarine to turquoise, register hydraulic forces, temperature and density. Fine, soft brushes are used for water, while rougher and more textured brushes distinguish mountains and rock.
The exhibition includes ‘The Umber Sea’, ‘Deeper’, ‘Fern and Iceberg’, ‘Golden Hour’ and ‘Iceberg and Moonset’, all dated 2026. Lee’s scenes draw on fragmentary visual sources alongside nineteenth-century literature, Fitz Henry Lane’s seascapes and Wu Tsang’s video installation ‘Of Whales’.
