Paper Whimsy: Top 5 Artists

The best thing to die for if you’re a tree, or what Darwin has to do with the visual scent of winter.

Let’s get one thing straight. We aren’t fans of “pointless paper” — we take our toilet paper recycled, our notes digital, and our magazines online. And while the waste of paper is frowned upon around here, its artistic uses are a whole different story. Here are 5 fascinating instances of paper-centric creativity.

YULIA BRODSKAYA

Russian-born, UK-based artist Yulia Brodskaya is a creative force to be reckoned with.

Her meticulously detailed, brilliantly crafted paper typography is unlike anything else we’ve seen. Not coincidentally, clients like Wired, Starbucks, Nokia, The New York Times Magazine, and many more seem to share our sentiment — Brodskaya’s work has graced the covers of various top-tier magazines and has appeared in multiple ad campaigns by the world’s leading creative agencies.

For us, it’s just a testament to the fact that you can take something utterly mundane, douse it in your unique brand of creativity, and transform it into something utterly original.

ALEX MERZ

This has to be the most innovative fragrance advertising we’ve ever seen.

Swiss visual communication student Adrian Merz decided to capture the essence of the fragrance Winter 1972 in an elaborate kit that comes with every 100ml bottle of the perfume. In it, there’s a poster that unfolds into a room transformed into a whimsical winterscape composed of thousands of white Post-It notes.

Adrian actually created the scene in his own living room — an undertaking just as laborious as you’d imagine it to be. But the end result is nothing short of phenomenal, both visually compelling and conceptually brilliant.

See more of the impressive making-of, and never look at a Post-It the same way again.

HELEN MUSSELWHITE

UK-based artist Helen Musselwhite has the imaginative prowess of a brilliant art director and the hands of a skilled craftsman. Her hand-cut paper sculptures are as impactful as they are visually stunning, drawing you into intricate and whimsical scenes that take on a life of their own.

Each sculpture has at least 4 layers of different-colored paper, assembled on top of each other to give the image dimension.

You can order some of Helen’s artwork online — the one tricky thing about appreciating paper art from a digital distance is that you lose out on all the rich tactile and dimensional detail of the piece.

via Design*Sponge

YUKEN TERUYA

We’ve always had an odd fascination with toilet paper rolls. Unfortunately, we never did much with it. But Japanese artist Yuken Teruya did.

In his signature style of taking everyday objects and transforming them into works of art reflecting on contemporary culture, Teruya creates intricate trees without adding or removing anything, just by cutting silhouettes into the paper and folding them out — a conceptual critique of contemporary consumerism and our tendency to add more to our lives while taking away from nature.

Teruya also works with paper bags, crafting objects of visual irony by juxtaposing the very resources that consumerism depletes with its quintessential symbol — the shopping bag.

via BOOM

PETER CALLESEN

Most of us don’t see A4 paper. To us, it’s just a carrier for whatever message is typed and printed on it. Not so for artist Peter Callesen, who has a special relationship with the materiality of A4 paper — a literal tabula rasa, each neutral and unassuming sheet allows him to create paper sculptures brimming with romance, tragedy and offbeat humor.

The sculptures are an exploration of probability — what the paper could be, how it could expand into the space surrounding it.

The negative and absent 2 dimensional space left by the cut, points out the contrast to the 3 dimensional reality it creates, even though the figures still stick to their origin without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is also an aspect of something tragic in many of the cuts.

See more of Callesen’s creations and revel in the artistic potential of your office space.

You may also enjoy:

• Art of the Toilet Paper Roll Here are three artists who have turned the inglorious brown tossaway into beautiful and inspired design goodness....
• The Exquisite Book: 100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game 100 of today's most talented indie artists and designers resurrect the "exquisite corpse" of the 1920's – a game-like collaborative creation process...
• Illustration Showcase: 5 Artists to Watch 5 incredible illustration artists to watch....
• Down With The Man | Part 1 A twist to traditional origami that uses currency to craft hilarious portraits of political leaders....
• Film Spotlight: Paper Heart Decheesing love, or how Michael Cera went from cameo to Romeo in a never-signed-up-for-it way....

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 10:41 am in art, design and was tagged art, cool, creative, design.