Papercuts
From September 16 to November 24, 2015
Exhibit Opening
September 16, 2015 at 6pm
Curator(s)
Reni Gower
Artist(s)
Béatrice Coron, Daniella Woolf, Jaq Belcher, Lauren Scanlon, Lenka Konopasek, Michelle Forsyth and Reni Gower
Location
The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar
Acknowledgment
VCUarts and the Painting and Printmaking department at VCUarts Qatar
Culminating in a 4-year, 12-venue tour, the fine art & craft exhibition Papercuts features exquisite hand cut paper works by an international roster of artists.
Born respectively in Australia, France, Czech Republic, Canada, and the United States, Jaq Belcher, Béatrice Coron, Michelle Forsyth, Reni Gower, Lenka Konopasek, Lauren Scanlon, and Daniella Woolf skillfully use simple tools on paper in a process dating back to 6th century China. With great effect, light and shadow transform the ancient technique of papercutting into dynamic contemporary installations filled with delicate illusions. Highlighting slow work wrought by hand, these meditative works are charged with personal narrative, cultural metaphor, and pristine beauty.
Papercuts was curated by Reni Gower. By choosing signature pieces by each artist, she re-envisioned the exhibition for its final showing in The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar. This project has been sponsored in part by VCUarts Qatar and VCUarts, Richmond.
Through intricate patterning, I also celebrate the redemptive nuance of work made by hand. While addressing issues of beauty and handicraft, my art becomes an intimate vehicle for reflection or reprieve.
Biographies
French artist Béatrice Coron lived in Egypt, Mexico, and China before relocating to New York City. Her papercuts are reminiscent of traditional Chinese and 17th century European decorative paper arts. Drawing with a blade, Coron creates eccentric environments that unfold through intriguing narratives filled with quirky details.
California based textile artist, painter, teacher, Daniella Woolf holds an MA in Textile Structures
from UCLA and a BA from California State University.
Her work has been exhibited extensively for
over 35 years most notably on the west coast. She is represented by Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia.
She is a recipient of the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship and Gail Rich Award for Excellence in the Arts in Santa Cruz. In 2010 she published the book and teaching DVD, Encaustic With a Textile Sensibility.
Her newest book, ‘The Encaustic Studio: A Wax Workshop in Mixed-Media Art’ will be published by Interweave Press in May 2012.
Australian-born Jaq Belcher is an independent artist, who currently lives and works in New York City. Through meticulous cutting and the subtle repositioning of small elliptical shapes, Belcher creates pristine contemplative works.
Born in the Czech Republic, Lenka Konopasek currently lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah, and Westminster College. By focusing on man-made and natural disasters, she creates thought-provoking works that belie her playful “pop-up” techniques. In much of her work, the tornado is a personal metaphor for the seductive beauty of violence.
Southern born and raised, Lauren Scanlon is an independent, interdisciplinary artist living in Los Angeles. Her background in cultural anthropology is revealed through her recontextualization of romance novels and vintage bed sheets. Time-worn and faded, her works delicately pun incongruous meanings; such as trash as rubbish or smut, versus treasure as sentiment or sentimentality.
@lauren__scanlon
laurenscanlon.com
Southern born and raised, Lauren Scanlon is an independent, interdisciplinary artist living in Los Angeles. She earned a BA in cultural anthropology from the University of Memphis and worked as a human statue in New Orleans and Asheville, NC before earning an MFA in printmaking from Ohio State University in 2007. Her work has been shown extensively throughout the Southeast and Midwest and she has received numerous awards, grants, and residencies. Represented by Penland Gallery, NC her work in in the print and artist book collections of MOMA – Franklin Furnace, the University of Maine, and Penland School of Craft.
Canadian artist Michelle Forsyth lives in Toronto, Ontario and is an Associate Professor at OCAD University. Pattern and illusion are combined in ironic whimsical works that depict contemporary ephemera photographed at historically relevant disaster sites. Using a process that is part requiem and part cathartic obsession, she translates these images into thousands of intricately cut and stacked paper flowers. Delicate traces of mark and color imprint her presence while evoking ideas of memory, loss and grief.
Virginia-based artist Reni Gower is a Professor of Art in the Painting and Printmaking Department at VCUarts, Richmond.
For her Papercuts, she creates unique stencils derived from historical Celtic knotwork designs. Using only a box cutter and large sheets of paper, the motifs are traced and hand-cut into interlocking patterns. The intricate works seem both lacelike and architectural. By addressing issues of beauty and handicraft, her works are an intimate vehicle for reflection or reprieve.
