Lee Welch's paintings are like inverted photographs that turn observation inside out

""In chess, there is a word for the point at which any further move only unravels what has been built: Zugzwang," says Lee Welch, a painter from Louisville, Kentucky currently based in Dublin, Ireland. "For me, that is the moment, the recognition that adding another mark would weaken the whole. To stop is not to abandon the game, but to protect its precarious balance.""

"Lee's paintings are about the margins of perception - how we relate to narrative, cultural memory and history. Inspired by classical tragedies, "not to restage grand narratives but to prove how its force of fate, blindness, and recognition continue to haunt contemporary experience", Lee's paintings use negative space and intelligent mark making to tell just enough of a story that allows the viewer to get lost inside of the imaginative possibilities."

Paintings focus on margins of perception, exploring how narrative, cultural memory and history are received. Classical tragedies inform the work to show fate, blindness and recognition haunting contemporary experience. Negative space and deliberate marks suggest just enough narrative to invite imaginative engagement and estrangement, often resembling inverted photographs that reverse the known and retain a foggy residue of previous images. Subjects appear casual—tennis matches, guitarists, chess—to probe instability of meaning. The practice emphasizes restraint: recognizing the moment when adding another mark would weaken the composition, protecting precarious balance rather than pursuing maximalism or minimalism.

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