Paper Cut:
An Exploration into the Contemporary World of Papercraft Art
and Illustration
By Owen Gildersleeve
Rockport 2014
Hardcover, £20.00 UK, $30.00 US, $33.00 CAN
ISBN 978-1-59253-902-4
Star rating: ****
This big, beautiful book goes exciting places. It examines
the working lives of 25 of the world’s top papercraft artists, whose work is at
the interface of papercraft, paper engineering, and digital technology.
(Appropriately, the cover art is a papercut design that has been obviously
Photoshopped.) The author, Owen
Gildersleeve, is a well-known graphic designer himself. He is our tour guide
around an exciting creative wonderland.
The book begins with a capsule history of papercutting.
Although concise, it yields many treasures. (Full marks for citing Hans
Christian Andersen and his performance papercutting that accompanied his storytelling to great
effect.)
Fast-forward to now. “ Unlike paper-cutting of the past, a
new wave of designers are emerging whose skills have developed in tandem with
digital media, and so the two are strongly interlinked. ... Some artists use
digital devices to cut out their artwork, and some rely on digital manipulation
after the image has been photographed. Some artists use... digital methods to create
artworks that appear to be handmade.”
Many of the showcased artists are set designers who create
fantastic papercraft worlds to photograph in the studio. Others have honed
identifiable styles of working – like Yulia Brodskaya, who has re-invented quilling with her on-edge
typographic compositions.
There’s an
in-depth interview with internationally-acclaimed papercut artist Rob Ryan, who
divulges his studio practices and generously shares some very handy
papercutting tips.
Other designers
include Andersen M studio, two brothers who craft papery stop-motion
animations, and Bianca Chang, whose intriguing layered sculptural pieces are
constructed by a method that is more or less the papercraft equivalent of 3-D
printing.
The featured artists are an international bunch, although
the selection is slightly London-centric. Fair enough, as London is a creative
hub and that’s where the author is based. He does a pretty good job of casting
his net far afield hunting for papercraft talent.
Whether you are looking to find
your niche as a professional graphic designer, or if you are a papercraft hobbyist who wants to up their game, a browse through
this title will yield plenty of inspiration. I found it refreshing to find a title that focuses on digital developments in papercrafting.
Good news if you live in or near
London – there’s an exhibition to
accompany the book:
Paper Cut, the exhibition, at The Proud Archivist Gallery,
Regents Canal, Haggerston, Sept 4th-25th 2014.
The show features 50+ pieces by the contributors to the
eponymous book. Papercuts by Rob Ryan, 3-D pieces by Bianca Chang, handcrafted
props from Andersen M Studio’s animation Going
West (it won the Golden Lion at Cannes),
some of Marc Hagan-Guirey’s kirigami artwork series Horrorgami, and
large scale creations by LA-based artist Jeff Nishinaka will be on display.
There’s also a programme
of talks and workshops, offering opportunities to meet the artists and sample
creative techniques.
