Mindblowingly Intricate Paper Art by Emma Van Leest

Emma Van Leest creates these incredible paper cut with the simplest of materials, a sheet of archival paper and a stencil knife.



"When I was little, I was always making things and drawing and playing elaborate made-up games, but I didn’t think about being an artist until I was at high school. Then, I was at RMIT University doing painting and in second year we had a collage project. I had backpacked around Europe over the summer holidays where I collected a whole lot of collage materials and went to as many art galleries and museums as I could. I walked everywhere, went to the opera for the first time in Vienna, and just soaked it all in. I came back to university and started making little theatre sets, exploring ideas about architectural space and putting figures in these little sets. Paper cutting began from here, almost as a solution to a problem. I had some artist friends who were making a lot of stencil art and I learnt a few techniques off them, and it grew from there."



"My mother taught me to sew when I was quite young, and since then I’ve enjoyed the repetitive and meditative nature of hand-scale sewing. Over time I became aware of the feminine traditions which I was connecting to, in particular the transformative nature of handicrafts – the potential to transform an everyday and normal object or material, such as plain cotton, paper or wool, into something beautiful, valuable and useful that would be treasured for generations."



"Paper was invented to tell stories, so it is the perfect medium to convey my fantastical imaginings. What began as a collage project became miniature theatre sets and evolved to what I do today. I collect imagery from a variety of sources – gardening magazines, medieval illustrations, Baroque landscape paintings, Chinese and Indian comic books, Mughal and Persian miniatures – and create fantastical montages of imagined fairy worlds."



"I choose to cut paper because (a) I wasn't a super fabulous painter; (b) it has a good crafty aspect which makes it very satisfying; (c) I can make dioramas; and (d) it's so much more transportable than many other forms of art – I once took a solo show to Sydney in my carry-on luggage."



Each piece take anything from half an hour to 2 months depending on the size and on how detailed it is.



"I draw inspiration from art history – particularly traditional painting and drawing of Asia, from patterns, botanical sketches, gardening magazines, comic books and my own travels, drawing and photography."





















All images are © Copyright of Emma Van Leest

Check her website: http://www.emmavanleest.com

Source: thedesignfiles, frankie, paperrunway

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