INCISING FROM PAPER INTO SPACE

Stephanie Lindquist, Lead Curator

"Precision: The Art of Cutting profiles the work of seven contemporary artists from Queensland whose creative practice feature cutting into paper or a similar support as an aesthetic technique. Cutting is integral to the artwork, conceptually and technically.

There are many contemporary artists in Australia exploring the physicality of paper through the process of incising or cutting. At a time when the environment and climate change is at the forefront of the media and 'the digital' is pervasive, this approach to a traditional, recyclable and renewable art material is in itself a political statement.

In Precision: The Art of Cutting, the methodical movement of a blade through a cellulose fibre substrate becomes a departure point to conceptually test and expand the medium, from the cut paper sheet and other paper-like materials, to the photographic print, sculptural relief and installation.

For some artists in the exhibition, such as First Nations artist Brian Robinson, Nicola Moss and Henri van Noordenburg, the natural world, ecology and sustainability inform the subject matter of their work."

"By the 1950's the modernist artist Henri Matisse was almost exclusively using papier decoupe for composing art works and decorative, large-scale commissions based on nature, figures and shapes (viii). The layered papercuts of Precision artist Nicola Moss share a similar approach but reflect the artist's idiosyncratic, contemplative style."

(viii) whats-on/tate-modern/henri-matisse-cut-outs exhibition visited 2014.

Metro Arts

Galleries One, Two and Window Gallery

6 May - 10 Jun 2023

Photo: Louis Lim.