A votive is an object or offering put forward in the consecration of a vow. Often taking the form of a candle, it is left without the expectation of return or recovery. In simple terms, it is an expression and evocation of faith. It is no sleight of hand that Adam Lee chose Votive as the title of this book, the first major publication made in collaboration with the Australian artist. In a career spanning more than a decade, Lee’s painting practice has found its bearings amidst this ever-complicated, rich and loaded terrain of faith. But as this book – which spans three major exhibitions in Toronto, Melbourne and London respectively – articulates to such a degree, Lee’s works resist their very footings. For every conceptual underpinning his paintings embrace, they never fail to challenge or defy. Neither encyclopaedic nor exhaustive in its scope, Votive instead offers a succinct vantage on this increasingly rich and multifaceted painterly language.