Into the Voids by Henry Lees
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Hand-Drawn with Gears and Pigment Inks
Dimensions: 56 x 76 cm
Year: 2026
Status: available
This is my most ambitious moiré drawing to date. Each alternate void, created with alternating gear passes along a straight edge, is filled by hand with pigment ink to create a striking emergent pattern. Inspired by Koken Murata's lacquer works, it is the latest of a series of works exploring the depiction of water and light. Utilising geometry this analogue moiré also contains a perfect golden ratio at the point it changes direction. A time-lapse of the full process behind it's creation can be found on my instagram. Lightfast pigment inks on 100% cotton, Saunders Waterford, watercolour paper. The paper has beautiful deckled edges with the work float mounted in frame. Frame supplied and shipped in wooden crate.
Why collect this work?
Closely spaced lines change course across the sheet, making a fixed geometric field appear to swell, fold and flow between surface pattern and watery depth.
- The artist profile describes Lees using gears and semi-autonomous systems. That practice helps frame the work’s central tension: repeated rules generate forms that resemble irregular natural movement.
- In the photograph, horizontal bands compress into dark diagonals, loosen into pale channels and reverse around the centre. Repeated oval voids near the bottom give the lower field a heavier rhythm.
- Catalogue metadata identifies pigment ink on cotton watercolour paper. Lees reports making alternating gear passes along a straight edge, then filling selected voids by hand, combining mechanical spacing with deliberate emphasis.
- For a collection concerned with drawing, systems or optical perception, Into the Voids provides a concrete case in which line alone produces competing impressions of flat pattern, volume and moving water.
About the Artist
Henry Lees
Henry Lees is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: mixed-media. Based in Leicester, GB.
Nationality: British
Hand-crafted generative art
