Creativity unfolds in paper trends exhibit
Paper traditionally has been a vehicle for art, supporting paintings, drawings and more. In a remarkable exhibit at the Ohio Craft Museum, paper — in a variety of incarnations — is the art.
“Crossover: Trends in Paper” presents 42 inventive works by 11 artists — many of them from Greater Columbus — who use both commercial and handmade paper in surprising and impressive ways.
Julie Mclaughlin of Coralville, Iowa, created a spectacular large kimono of handmade papers dyed in shades of blue and green.
Susan Byrd of Anacortes, Washington, continues the theme with her “Shifu Haori,” a coat worn over a kimono, that she built entirely of paper, including the thin brown thread used to assemble and decorate the piece. The coat looks and feels like linen and defies viewers to believe that it was indeed made of paper.
In three works from her series “Mountains to Climb,” Susan Li O’connor of Powell, Ohio, considers relationships between the United States and other countries as well as the ongoing tension between Taiwan and China. Using American and Chinese newspapers, she has fashioned thousands of tiny rolls that are assembled to create standing sculptures of a difficult terrain of hills.
Cuba was on the mind of Columbus artist Laura Alexander when she created “Cascade,” intricately cut geometric designs which, she wrote in her artist statement, was inspired by the colors and patterns of the country.
Ann Corley Silverman of Columbus dug into the 1930s Federal Writers’ Project to find slave stories. In six shadowboxes, her “Slave Narratives and Old Lace” incorporate handmade paper, lace and hundreds of scrolls with the
names of those telling the stories.
Gibby Waitzkin of Floyd, Virginia, created works with sturdy wood-like woven frames (still paper) surrounding scenes that often have a theme of immigration. In “The Hard Journey,” a boat in the foreground carries snippets of immigration orders on walnut-dyed handmade paper while in the background stands an amber-colored image of the Statue of Liberty.
Cancer patients were on the mind of Julie M. Abijanac of Columbus. Her suspended, all-white installation “Anamnesis” and the framed “Accretion in Black” both incorporate denselypacked, flower-shaped cut papers referring to the growth of cancer cells.
Tom Balbo, also of Columbus, achieves a colorful collage-like work that looks like an abstract painting with “Rectangular Ghosts.”
Elena Osterwalder, also of Columbus, pays homage to the manuscripts of prehistoric natives with “Codice Azcapotzalco,” four large hanging strips in shades of red made of handmade bark paper.
Aimee Lee of Lyndhust, Ohio, employed a Korean technique of twisting and twining paper strips into basketry to create her series of ducks in realistic fowl-like poses.
Hiroshi Hayakawa, who teaches at Columbus College of Art & Design, has crafted large, origami-like animal nightlights as well as smaller animal sculptures. His dogs, cats, penguins, a hippo and a brilliant blue kingfisher bird are enchanting.
As Char Norman, fiber artist who curated the show said, “This exhibition aims to demonstrate unusual methods of producing work from paper.”
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