Bovey Lee's Elegiac Crisis Cutouts Mirror Japan's Tsunami And Nuclear Scare

Bovey Lee's intricate cutouts are a delicate response to disaster. Lee, who made these particular rice paper cutouts in 2008 and 2009, presaged the natural and nuclear crises that have put the world on edge in recent weeks, and her elegiac work feels appropriate where other art might seem garish. This slideshow of some of her most relevant works includes close-up shots of her painstaking detail, which may reflect the scrutiny and obsession with specifics of the media's response to these disruptive events. Lee told us:

The two extremely intricate and dense tsunami cutouts I created, "Tsunami-Enmeshed" and "Tsunami-Oblivious" were inspired by Hokusai's famous woodblock print known as the Great Wave. The three Power Plant cutouts are based on the idea of self-sacrifice in time of crisis, much like the Japanese power plant emergency workers risking their lives for the greater good of their disaster-stricken country.