A colonial-style dollhouse with a teal roof and gabled windows anchors Isaiah Lees current paintings, where childhood toys slip from familiar playthings into uncanny, animate presences. Working in Chicago, Lee stages scenes in the scaled-down rooms and surrounding landscape of the miniature home, channeling the wonder and theatrics of adolescent imagination while tracing how early experiences continue to permeate adult life.
Born into a fundamentalist Christian family in Missouri, Lee grapples with the contradictions of those teachings alongside the lived reality of being a Black man in the U.S. The tension animates his imagery and tone. They arrive at a moment when it feels necessary to return to childhood as a way of uncovering who we are and what good we are still capable of bringing forth, he adds. He also writes that faith cannot simply be abandoned but must be understood as an inheritance wrought into the body and the imagination.
Shifts in scale, perspective, and belief
In Shepherd I, a tiny green astronaut evokes Moses as he leads livestock through the house, while an enormous skull and a concealed man loom in the shadows. The stark disparities in scale point to the outsized impact of formative encounters and the way memory can exaggerate scope. Narrative ripples across the work, too: Romeo and Juliet and Juliet capture two different points of view of the same scene, a world-building strategy that extends the story beyond any single frame. Lees heavy use of shadow positions each composition as an illuminated nook amid a larger, unknowable expanse. Darkness pervades many of the pieces, not as a strictly sinister note but to signal the omnipresence of the unknown and a subtle, underlying fear.
Among the titles he has shared are Parable of the Sower I, Weapons, On the Threshold of Liberty I, An Old Friend, Scaredy Cat, and Courage a constellation that underscores his blend of parable, play, and disquiet.
Chicago exhibitions
Lee is preparing a solo exhibition this fall at crosswalk in Chicago. Titled A Thief in the Night, the show nods to the Biblical notion that people need to repent in order to be right with the Lord. For many, this warning creates a persistent sense of unease, fostering the belief that no amount of faithfulness is truly enough, the artist says. Life becomes a race against time, a race that cannot be won. If youre in Chicago, you can see some of Lees works through November 1 in an exhibition celebrating the citys emerging artists at Hyde Park Art Center, and A Thief in the Night opens on October 16.
Across these works, the dollhouse becomes both stage and mirror, where scale, shadow, and story test what we think we knowand what we carry forward.
