Description

A Sea of Three Suns I marks the beginning of a symbolic universe in which three suns rise above an imagined sea. Created in 2022, during the early stage of Jennifer Lee’s transition into abstraction, the work transforms personal questions of existence, fear, and inner conflict into a landscape of light and color. The three suns are not physical celestial bodies, but symbolic sources of light representing the forces that illuminate and shape consciousness. Beneath them, the sea becomes an inner landscape where turbulent currents, darkness, and radiance coexist. At the heart of the work lies a deeply personal question: Why do I exist, and what remains when even light disappears? Created with oil paint and UV-reactive pigments on canvas, the painting explores light not merely as illumination, but as a living presence that carries emotion and reveals unseen dimensions. Under ultraviolet light, another visual reality emerges, expanding the work beyond what can be perceived under ordinary illumination and establishing the visible and invisible duality that would become central to Lee’s later practice. A Sea of Three Suns I became the conceptual starting point for a continuing exploration of light, existence, and invisible realities. These ideas developed through Lee’s subsequent abstract works and ultimately converged with representation in the Crystal Flower series, where visible forms and hidden layers of light coexist within a single image.