Ruby Lee, Rowe Lane

Rowe Lane is a self-led exhibition by the London-based artist Ruby Lee, on view March 7th and 8th at SPACE’s Mare Street Gallery. This is Lee’s first solo exhibition.Ruby Lee’s paintings draw from an eclectic feminist-based archive, and her installations attempt to harness her own image data and physicalise it into analogue displays of wood, glue and paint. Lee’s ongoing research credits Steyerl’s In Defence of The Poor Image, and illustrates the artist’s fascination in modern data storage and the translation of the digital into physical.Her title Rowe Lane is a genderless pseudonym that’s become an alternative introduction to the artist. It originates from her childhood home in Hackney; a triangular timber house designed by her father, a mile away from the exhibition. Lee grew up amongst art and design, working part time at Raystitch, her mother’s fabric shop.Rowe Lane will showcase the influences of both architecture and dressmaking in her work. May Lee for example, featuring Sizewell’s brutalist nuclear power station, has been printed on fabric and made into clothes by the artist. All available to purchase at the space.A sound piece will accompany her work, an audio addition of the female ‘nattering’ that flows through her studio and her work. Paintings like Lapdance Girls and Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper are examples of the real stories, mostly found in the Metro newspaper, that have inspired much of her work. They’re all representations of women who have committed cinematic, legendary, albeit irresponsible and ‘messy’ crimes.

Lee screened her first short film Jack in 2024. Working closely with the family of a bereaved friend, Jack is a documentary about her experience of growing up with him and their friends as well as the police and state failings that led to his death in the Hackney Marshes. It is available via the artist’s website.

The United Friends and Family Campaign (UFFC) generously supported the making of this film, and have provided further funding towards this exhibition. The UFFC supports the communities of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, and works hard to spread those victim’s stories.

Lee moved into recorded media whilst assisting resident artist Constant Dullart at The Grey Space in The Middle (NL) in 2022. After six years in The Hague, she retrained in non-fiction filmmaking, and currently works in live sport post-production to support her studio practice.

Ruby Lee (b. 1997, London, UK) received her BA at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, (NL) in 2021 and her MA in Screen Documentary Filmmaking at Goldsmith’s University, London (UK) in 2024. Her work has been previously shown at Grafische Werkplaats, The Hague, (NL), 2018, the EYE Film Institute, Amsterdam, (NL), 2018, Central Saint Martins, London, (UK), 2020, WTC Gallery, The Hague, 2022, The Grey Space In The Middle, The Hague, (NL), 2022 and Core Arts, London, (UK) 2023. She was awarded the UFFC’s Youth Wing Fund for the second time in 2025.

Ruby Lee, Rowe Lane

Links