Bovey Lee
Bovey Lee is a paper-cut artist based in Los Angeles, California, USA. Born in Hong Kong, Bovey Lee was inspired by Chinese calligraphy from an early age, and later went on to complete a BA in Fine arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Since then, Lee has earned two MFAs – one from the University of California, Berkeley, and a second in computer graphics and interactive media from Pratt Institute in New York. Lee began experimenting with cut paper in 2005 and has been able to incorporate both of her degrees into the creative process. First, Lee creates a hand sketch of the composition, then she forms a compilation of images on the computer in order to create a more ornate template. After the computer graphic is created she uses it as a loose guide while using an x-acto knife to cut our the negative space in the paper. The paper medium has layers of significance to Lee, who describes it as
"a very intimate material and also familiar to everyone; we handle and use paper everyday. The paper that I use, Chinese rice paper, is both personally and culturally significant. Chinese invented paper so it’s part of my lineage. It is also the first art material I knew that evokes memories and history."
We Are All Mountaineers is a series comprised of intricately hand cut Chinese rice paper that follow up Lee’s 2017 exhibition,The Sea Will Come to Kiss Me, a site-specific installation created in response to the contentious rhetoric of the 2016 presidential election which mirrored Lee’s unease as an immigrant, woman, and person of color. The installation confronted viewers with a perforated wall, behind which were hundreds of floating paper boats made from her own immigration documents. Using the wall as a metaphor for exclusion and longing, the viewer is able to see the objects in her work, but not enter into their space.
The piece in the Escalette Permanent Collection of Art, We Are All Mountaineers – Exit (出), is the first Lee made in the series and serves as an "ancestor" for the other works. Using symbols, motifs, and news images, the work reconstructs a brief history of U.S. immigration with mountains and several U.S. cities populated by immigrants serving as a backdrop. Recurring motifs (including stars, gates, fences, oceans) featured in the other works in the We Are All Mountaineers series all stem from this work. Many of the works from this series depict children either alone or in suspended poses; each child seeks comfort and stability through play or toys, while staying afloat in the transitory ocean with poise and courage.
