A tax on a bag and other landscapes

In partnership with ACRE, The University of Illinois Springfield Visual Arts Gallery is pleased to present “A tax on a bag and other landscapes,” a solo exhibition presenting new paintings and sculpture works by Chicago-based artist Frances Lee.

A series of arrangements and compressions of brown paper bags populate the gallery’s floor. In both singularity and accumulation, Lee investigates the material weight, volume, surface area, and structure of these ubiquitous objects to look at how we understand abstract numerical relationships like quantity. Meanwhile, drawing on the artist’s interest in painting as a method of symbolic and diagrammatic thought, the painted compositions in the show use contrasting color relationships and investigations of points of view to suspend moral tensions observed in the artist’s everyday encounters. Through imagery like trash thrown out the window of a car, a monument’s point of view, and a named donation for a private healthcare clinic, the paintings work with the paper objects to create visual vignettes that confront the viewer with the question of how politics is imaged.