Description

The Coldness Seeps into the Snowflakes is Jennifer Lee’s first abstract painting created with UV-reactive pigments, marking a significant expansion of her artistic practice beyond representational painting. Through this work, she began exploring light itself as both the subject and the language of painting. Rather than depicting snowflakes simply as natural forms, Lee sought to visualize the invisible sensation of cold through the interaction of light, color, and crystalline structures. Inspired by the physical behavior of light, the painting investigates how reflection, scattering, and the perception of color can evoke temperature and atmosphere, transforming an invisible phenomenon into a visual experience. Created with oil paint and UV-reactive pigments, the work unfolds through two interconnected visual layers. Under ordinary illumination, luminous blues, crystalline forms, and layered textures create a sense of depth and frozen stillness. Under ultraviolet light, another hidden image gradually emerges, revealing an invisible dimension that coexists with the visible one. These two realities become complementary aspects of a single painting, expanding the viewer’s perception through light. As the first abstract work in Lee’s UV-reactive practice, The Coldness Seeps into the Snowflakes laid the foundation for her continuing exploration of light as an artistic language. The snowflake forms introduced in this painting later reappear in other works, often as elements within the background. Rather than simply representing snow or winter, they have come to symbolize the artist’s own frozen inner state, creating a contrast between the visible imagery of each work and the emotional reality that exists beneath it.