I am looking at the works of four papercut artists who make largescale 2D works/ installations.Mia Pearlman and Nahoko Kojima make works is inspired by our natural environment and focus on challenging the form rather than the content, making the paper behave or perform in strange, unknown ways. Kara Walker and Bovey Lee use simple traditional forms like silhouette paper cut portraiture or Chinese paper cutting tradition to depict world issues that are affecting us here and now.Kara Walker's work is political and delves into history-the American civil right movement,gender and racial discrimination and other kinds of prejudices prevalent in the world today .Bovey Lee is inspired by the imbalance between man and nature and sustainability issues .
Mia thinks of herself as a sculptor and she sculpts with paper.The work of this New York based papercut artist is dynamic, forceful, fluid and awe inspiring.Mia takes her inspiration from natural forms like typhoons, tornadoes, whirlwinds, moving clouds and since this world constantly transforms itself, her voluminous, three dimensional,installations echo this insubstantiality both in content and form.She wants to create natural forms that have a universality for an universal audience.She creates for visual pleasure and makes works that trancends language, culture and blurs the distinctions between contemporary art and crafts.Her process is very intuitive- drawing instinctively on paper and then cutting without planning and installing it in space very experientially.These installations illuminate another world that we do not live in , and her objective as an artist is to be in the middle of nature and the mystery of it all.She has created large mobile pieces that move with natural wind in a room or has created using natural light sources.The audience interact with the pieces,and have a childlike response to the works -that of wonder and amazement .
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| Mia Pearlman, Pulse, 2010 |
Bovey Lee
The papercut works of Chinese artist Bovey Lee are narrative-based and explore the tension between man and the environment in the context of power, sacrifice, and survival. Her very intricate narratives deal with technology , urbanization and consumption and are filled with paradox, tension, and conflict concerning urban and environmental issues.Her recent work is informed by man's precarious relationship with nature in the twenty-first century, i.e., what we do to the environment with our super machines and technologies and what nature does back to us in reaction. Before the final hand cutting process, she composes the images using the computer and software, prints these and uses them as a reference. The images are photographic translated into patterns of solid and void, while cutting free hand without any rulers or stencils.Her work is like drawing with a knife and is rooted in her study of traditional Chinese papercutting as a folk tradition and well as calligraphy. "Cutting paper is a visceral reaction and natural response to my affection for immediacy, detail, and subtlety. The physical and mental demand from cutting is extreme and thrilling, slows me down and allows me to think clearly and decisively.", she says.
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| Bovey Lee, Ironing Oceans , 2012 |
American artist Kara Walker makes panoramic friezes of cut-paper silhouettes, usually black figures against a white wall, which address the history of American slavery and racism through violent and unsettling imagery. Walker has produced works in gouache paintings, video animation, shadow puppets, and video projections, as well as a large number of black-paper silhouettes, perhaps her most recognizable works to date.
Her nightmarish,grotesque yet fantastical images incorporate a cinematic feel and depict imagery that is violent, unsettling and confrontational. Walker uses images from historical textbooks to show how African American slaves were depicted during Antebellum South. Kara Walker says of her work"All of the bad vibes, the bad feelings, all of the nastiness, and all of the sort of vulgar associations with blackness, and the more base associations in this culture about Black Americans or Africans bubble up to the surface of my brain and spill out into this work.”
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| Kara Walker, "Slavery! Slavery! presenting a GRAND and LIFELIKE Panoramic Journey into Picturesque Southern Slavery or "Life at 'Ol' Virginny's Hole' (sketches from Plantation Life)" 1997 |
Nahoko Kojima
Kojima is a Japanese artist ,known to create one-off designs that are never duplicated and often based on the forces of nature .These are three dimensional, sculptural works that float in space.Cloud Leopard, one hand-cut sheet of black paper, suspended from the ceiling in a manner that created a sculptural representation of the animal intertwined with narrative and hidden characters. It took 5 months to complete and the piece was very successful because of Kojima's pioneering technique, turning traditionally flat wall hung pieces into sculptures floating in exhibition halls.Regarding her process Kojima is quoted as having said:
“When I was a child I would lie down on my back on the grass and draw the underside of flowers. I think when we discover a hidden beauty, we leave our bodies and look on ourselves, the object and environment, all as one lovely epiphany.”
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| Nahoko Kojima, Cloud Leopard,2012 |
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