Victoria Paper Art

‘Untitled’

victoriapaperart — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:13:08 +0000

‘Untitled’ – Take a look at our University of Lincoln Degree Show website here: http://untitled-online.webs.com/

The private view is on the 4th June and the show then continues for 2 weeks after that. It will be held at the Greestone’s building on Lindum Road, Lincoln. Feel free to come along and look at my work and my fellow students.

Keep checking my blog to see how I am getting on with my piece!

Paper Art Exhibitions

victoriapaperart — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:08:46 +0000

Whilst researching for my dissertation I was lucky enough to visit a few exhibitions that were purely dedicated to Paper Art.

The ‘Unfolding’ exhibition at the Chapels Gallery in Ormskirk was the first paper art exhibition I had been to and it was really good being able to see all the work up close that had inspired me though my second year at uni. A lot of Thurle Wright’s work was shown there which was extremely useful for my dissertation because she was a key artist I discussed.

I also visited the ‘Cut and Fold’ exhibition at the New Brewery Arts Centre in Cirencester. This exhibition had a greater variety of artists who use paper in different ways. Again, it was so inspiring to see the artists work in person. Take a look at the exhibition here: http://www.newbreweryarts.org.uk/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/2009/7-november-to-3-january-2010-c-299_348_349_422.html?p=shop

Visiting both of these exhibitions has been really helpful, not only for my dissertation research but also for my own art practice. Both of these exhibitions were quite small and both show in small galleries. This could perhaps comment on the seriousness of paper art.

Circles

victoriapaperart — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:48:06 +0000

On each day spent cutting I have been collecting and counting the pieces that are cut out. These tiny pieces are stored in separate specimen jars not only to act as artefacts or remains of the paper cut but more importantly they are used to measure time. The amount of time spent each day is shown through the different amount of pieces that are in each jar. Here is an example of how I will display these jars in my degree show:

Each bottle will be labelled with the date, how many minutes were spent cutting on that day and how many circles were cut out.

Degree Show piece so far…

victoriapaperart — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:43:19 +0000

So far I have been working on my piece for 50 days over 8,961 minutes which is equivalent to 149 hours and 21 minutes of cutting. I have been taking photos of the piece after every few days of working on it; here are some examples to show the growth of the cut area.

Thursday 18th February

Thursday 18th March

Friday 2nd April

Thursday 22nd April

On average I am able to cut a 10cm row of circles across the roll every week. On average I spend about 2 hours 54 minutes cutting everyday, although some days I can spend up to 5 hours working on the piece.

Degree Show Piece

victoriapaperart — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:36:45 +0000

For my Degree Show I wanted to continue cutting circles into paper like I did with ’2,835′ but on a much larger scale. I brought a roll of chinese Wenzhou paper to cut into. This type of paper is known for its durability and is said to last for thousands of years. However, it is also incredibly delicate because it is only 30gsm – so it is very thin. This makes the process of cutting even more obsessive and time-consuming.

The Wenzhou paper I’m using is 97cm in width and then 10m on the roll. I will try and cut as many circles and work my way as far into the roll as possible before my dedline. I started cutting on Tuesday 16th February.

‘Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut’

victoriapaperart — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:45:21 +0000

This paper art book has been such an inspiration to my work over the last year. Whilst researching for my dissertation I found it very difficult to find books that were purely dedicated to paper artists. Many books on paper art only demonstrate techniques such as origami or paper-mache. This book has become my paper art ‘Bible’! Its introduction was extremely useful for my dissertation and the variety of artists work has been inspiring to my own practice.

I would defiantly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in paper art.

Turn To The B-Side

victoriapaperart — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:08:07 +0000

As a student I am taking part in an online exhibition called ‘Turn To The B-Side’. Have a look at my page: http://turntothebside.com/fine-art/victoria-jones/
Other students from my Fine Art course at the University of Lincoln have their work posted on the site as well.

Making ’2,835′

victoriapaperart — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:40:08 +0000

Whilst creating ’2,835′ I took a photo of the sheet after every session of cutting. I decided to use these photos to make a video. The growth of the cut area looks like microscopic cells spreading across the page:

’2,835′

victoriapaperart — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:45:59 +0000

After experimenting with different printed papers, I decided to focus more on the actual process and time consuming nature of the circle cutting. Using a craft knife I cut tiny, repetitive circular patterns into a pure A3 white sheet. A structure of these connecting circles builds across the sheet so some of the original form has been kept but the paper also becomes extremely fragile. Cutting these circles into the paper gives the sheet a lace-like texture.

This process becomes very repetitive and is incredibly time consuming. I timed the number of minutes it took to complete this A3 sheet and then this became the title. So, this particular A3 sheet took 2,835 minutes which is equivalent to 47 hours and 15 minutes of cutting.

'2,835'

'2,835' Detail

'2,835' Hanging

3rd Year of Uni

victoriapaperart — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:54:37 +0000

I continued to cut into different types of paper during my final year at uni. The process of cutting shapes out of paper by hand has now been adapted as my method of working. I experimented with using a variety of papers as well as cutting out different shapes. This process of cutting by hand becomes very repetitive so I focused on just continuously cutting one shape to continuously cut: The circle.

These are some examples of the experiments I did:

Text Circles

Layered Train Tickets

Leftover Circles