Lisa Ruyter

To research her latest paintings, Lisa Ruyter shadowed people whose job it is to prevent nuclear apocalypse.

Lisa Ruyter’s new paintings, the result of her privileged access to the sealed world of nuclear diplomacy, are like cells from a graphic novel about the arms race. Working alongside print and news journalists at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s headquarters at the UN site in Vienna, Ruyter—who is American but is based in Austria—was allowed to take photographs of the IAEA Board of Governors meetings, where it is decided whether countries will be referred to the UN Security Council for noncompliance with safeguards obligations. Ruyter used these photographs as the basis for toxic-colored canvases that convey a sense of the tension and high political stakes that surround such secret discussions. (Artinfo)