Many artists are fascinated with paper, it’s many forms, characteristics, tones, surfaces and colors; and the way it provides a platform and co-meduim for various kinds of drawing and painting.
Jen Stark has chosen to make paper itself her primary medium, creating vibrant, intensely hued sculptures out of hand cut stacks of colored paper.
Her sculptures often drawing on the visual vibrations of complimentary colors and the appeal of hues in the order of the spectrum to give her cut paper arrangements a visual snap that is immediately arresting.
In looking through her gallery in photographs, you can see the dimensionality of some pieces easily, but others lend themselves less well to photographic reproduction (as is often the case with sculpture) and you need to project a bit to get an idea of what they might be like in person.
Her online galleries also include a selection of colorful drawings, which sometimes follow the sculpture into themes of repeated patterns and bands of brilliant color.
There are also a couple animations, or “papermations”, with animated arrangements of cut paper.
Stark studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she received a BA in Fibers and also studied animation, and at the Center for Art and Culture in Aix-en-Provence, France.
In addition to her web site, Stark maintains a blog, with news and information about her projects and exhibitions.
Both the web site and the blog currently feature a video interview with the artist (also on YouTube), in which she talks about her process. The moving camera also allows you to get a better idea of the dimensionality of some of the pieces.
Hey Charley,
I just stumbled onto the video interview with her elsewhere. Her work is really beautiful, and quite surprising. It’s fun to see how far she can take a simple material… colored paper. It’s easy as a painter to get wrapped up in the language of how to create illusion with pigment, and forget about the possibilities when you really experiment with a very simple material. Very fun and interesting work.
Thanks, Colin. Nice to hear a painter’s perspective.
I love this. Very interesting.
http://www.linesandcolors.com/
Her work is fantastic and, as someone who also works with paper, I am really jealous. Another of her admirers it would seem was the window dresser of the Banana Republic store in Regent’s Street (London). I did a double take as I walked past on its opening night and saw that it had large (about 8 foot high) versions of her work in the windows. Their versions were done only in shades of orange and brown though.
Your work is fascinating and your short videos are very well put together. I’ve seen your work before and I have always been attracted to how vibrant and catching the paper works that you have done have truly been an inspiration to my own art.
Alex