secondary research - noteable paper artists

So far we have seen the work of Richard Sweeney, however he is not the only paper artist out there, there are loads of paper artists, all specialising in different types of paper sculpting..

Last year, during my art foundation course, I came across many inspirational paper artists during our Sculpture module; artists such as:


Bert Simons

Simons realised in the mid 2000s, that there wasnt much of himself that could be left behind; and so he decided to 'clone' himself using paper. Sounds strange, yes, but his idea was actually ingenius.

Simons first sculpted his head using clay, then used photographs of his own skin to texturise the model.

I do not own this picture; taken from Bert Simons' website.

Then, using 3D computer software, he 'flattened out' the skin into pieces of paper which could be printed out and then glued together to make the final 'Bert'.

I do not own this picture; taken from Bert Simons' website.

 Final 'Bert':

I do not own this picture; taken from Bert Simons' website.

You can see Simons' work on his website, here.

Peter Callesen

Peter Callesen is another highly inspirational paper artist, he really brings paper to life, mainly by bringing it literally out of the page. He works using a4 paper a lot of the time as he claims that "it is probably the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded" and that "we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper".

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

The photograph shown above is of 'White Hand' by Callesen from 2007, and I think it's incredible! I love how the cut out is of a normal hand, whereas the actual pop-out piece is the skeleton hand; it's sort of the wrong way round, as usually the skeleton is encased inside your hand.

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

This piece shows the same concept as the 'White Hand', however it is half of a skeleton leaving the page.. the bottom half actually drawn out as a body. This piece is from 2006, and is called 'Half Way Through'.

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

The above work is called 'Down the River' and it's from 2005; it's amazingly intricate, and you can only really see by viewing a zoomed in picture of the sculpture that  there is in fact, a boat floating down the beautifully sculpted river..

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

You can see more of Callesen's work on his website, here.