Devin Troy Strother
Pure, cut-paper madness and tongue-in-cheek titles, like Mission school run through a paper shredder.
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Paper
Bombo!
Hello, neighbors.* It’s Wednesday, so let’s make it fun and colorful. Let’s populate our brains with a rainbow of imagination and sea of dreams. Our first friend today is Italian artist Maurizio Santucci aka “Bombo!”. Santucci makes his dreams into reality through the use of cutouts and subtle dimension. Don’t think he’s a one trick pony, though, because his traditional illustration style is also the cat’s pajamas. Why don’t you take a visit to Bombo’s magical land of delights?
*I apologize for the tone of this post. I blame it on the cardigan I’m wearing.
Yulia Brodskaya
Russian-born but London-based paper mistress Yulia Brodskaya has made me look at one of my worst enemies in a new light. Paper and I have a long-standing animosity toward each other. It just sits there, blankly staring at me, never giving me a single hint about what I should draw, and I, in return, tend to crumple it up a lot or, in rare cases, light it on fire out of frustration. Brodskaya, on the other hand, takes that pressed tree pulp and bends it to her every whim. She creates the mind-bogglingly complex type styles similar to Marian Bantjes or Si Scott out of simple paper. Enemy or not, the dynamic between me and paper is shifting, and Brodskaya deserves the thanks for that. Maybe one day I can pick up the pencil without first picking up the matches as a show of force.
Su Blackwell
A nice little coincidence this morning, as I was listening to the new Polypunk mix I came across the work of Su Blackwell. Blackwell is a British artist who works mostly in books. She cuts paper from the pages of books to create amazing 3-D scenes (no, not necessarily depicting something from the book). She’s even incorporated lighting into the scenes to increase the beautiful dramatic effect she creates with paper. The Polypunk mix was so soft and instrumental and it just went perfectly with Blackwell’s work. Each intricate scene, with its subtle sense of movement and tension, telling me a story, while soft strings play in the background. That is pure Peanut Butter and Jelly magic right there, the two were meant for each other. PB&J magic, that’s not a phrase your familiar with? I thought it made sense anyway.
Kirsten Hassenfeld
I came across the work of Kirsten Hassenfeld last year sometime, but it didn’t hit me right. I don’t know what’s changed about me since then, but I can’t get enough of it now. Working mostly with paper and other light media in a very pale palette, Kirsten creates installations of ethereal geometry relying on small points of light, and a sense of space. These are the kinds of installations that lute music was made for. Hassenfeld lights a lot of her pieces from within which adds to their complexity by removing a lot of the shadows, making it hard to discern all the details. She increases complexity by increasing visual simplicity. There’s more going on here than I could hope to explain in a short post.
3-D Snowflakes
COOL!! I am totally lame!
Origami Lord of the Rings
You have just got to be shitting me. Trying to imagine how this guy’s brain sees things is making me convulse.
Eric Joisel, Master Origamist makes figures from Lord of the Rings.
Carlo Giovani
When I was younger I had an origami phase. It was really more just a day when I was bored and found origami in my Things To Do and Make books. It might have become a hobby if I wasn’t completely terrible at it. Paper doesn’t like me and I don’t understand how this folded thing is supposed to be a seal at the circus. It was a mutual disagreement between me and origami. That’s part of what makes the work of Brazilian designer Carlo Giovani even more impressive to me. I can’t imagine trying to sit down and figure out how I can take a sheet of paper and actually make a 3-D replica of something just by cutting and folding. That literally blows my mind. Blows it right out of my skull and onto the carpet.
