Paper art

Rummaging around on the internet today looking at paper and paper pulp sculptures, I came across this blog PapierWespe (here is the link)  which is in German but the images mean it's not hard to follow roughly and identify names and artists.  Among several I was particularly struck by the work of Miriam Londono, link to her website is here.  All the images reproduced here come from her website.

Miriam Londono, who is from Colombia but now lives and works in the netherlands, works with paper pulp and hand-made paper to create wonderful constructions and sculptures. using script or not-writing and organic swirls and forms.

Nests21 cms x 30 cmsPaper2011Three pieces of 30x21x18 cm- The heads, consisting of hundreds of coloured-paper letters, are a metaphor for the possibilities human beings have to communicate and establish contact with the world and others. 




I really like this piece, one of several where Miriam Londono has created semi-transparent panels of text, made from paper pulp, which are then suspended, creating interesting shadows and see-through vistas which deepen the overall images.  Some are very large, but this one is relatively compact in scale.

Letter to my Father85 cms x 125 cmsPaper - Three pieces of 125x85cm -2005These handwritten letters express my desire to connect with the past, with my family and origins.

Trapped200 cms x 200 cmsPaper2008Installation at the Paper Museum in Capellades, Spain- with the names of 120 hostages by the Farc in Colombia-2008-These works are a reflection on the tragedy that hundreds of Colombians live. To name of the hostages is somehow remember them, to oppose to the barbarism and terror resulting in the FARC actions



Miriam London also uses her paper-pulp writing to create sheets which she assembles into books, like these.  

Memories65 cms x 40 cmsPaper2005

Book65 cms x 32 cmsPaper2011The structure of these books intend to trigger meanings in the mind: what makes a book? Is it the words or the pages, or both? Seen as a sieve of ideas, the books stop being page-by page compilations, to be transformed into fragile nets catching language’s essentials metaphors.



I think MIriam Londono's  work is a very interesting way of re-cycling and re-constructing paper and text into new forms, and this is highly relevant to my work towards my final project.  I think her method of using pulp to write in a continuous line also builds on my previous project, doing non-writing in continuous, sinuous lines.  I think this is an approach wroth experimenting with further.



The item on PapierWespe which caught my attention was some images of Miriam Londono's working method, writing with paper pulp and creating panels of text 

These reminded me of the printed and laser-cut panels we saw in Edinburgh last month (q.v. Edinburgh Day 3 blog post )