Paper Cuts
One of the things Marquetry seems more akin to at the moment is the Art of paper cuts. This seems to have become quite trendy recently with Artists like Peter Callesen, Richard Sweeney and Jen Stark. The fragility of the material and the actual ‘cut’ itself as the critical action. Both techniques require precision and a slip of the blade could cause an irreversible error.
Peter Callesen particularly makes some interesting work both pictorial and sculptural. The varying scale in this work jumps from the standard A4 sheet to massive installations, the material proving no obstacle for the ideas. I saw the fairytale castle that the artist made in the ‘Art and Enchanment’ exhibition that toured to Walsall earlier this year. There wasn’t much I found enchanting about the exhibition but I did enjoy the castle, cut and constructed from an enourmous sheet of paper, the cuts and holes exposed revealing the process of its construction.
Infact discarded pieces of veneer that have had pieces removed for pictures are fascinating to me. Perfect shapes hover in the middle of a carefully selected sheet, having provided a piece for a picture these incomplete sheets lie in wait for the next time they may be of use.
There are endless connections between paper and veneer- obviously products of wood. Also historically and culturally both among the most accessible and familiar of primitive art materials. Papercutting has its origins in East Asia- China and Japan where the craft is still very important- and reading of it’s rural origins is interesting- like work with wood it has developed within the countryside and developed in a more sophisticated manner, transferred to the workshop as a higher form of art.
