Peter Callesen

First impressions

      Callesen's work intrigues me how he can create these new forms by cutting from a plain A4 sheet of white paper. I like the detail of his work, also the simplicity of it, particularly how a lot of his work looks at the differences between life and death through negative and positive spaces. Some of his most remarkable works are where the remains of the cut and folded objects become shadows of the objects former self. He uses the positive and negative space to tell a sometimes-dark story about the past and future of his subject.

Background Information

     Callesen was born in Denmark in 1967, and started his studies at Goldsmith college London. Callesen's work deals with themes such as life and death as well as memories and fairy tales by starting with a simple sheet of white paper and cutting very precisely to create extremely detailed 3D work.

http://www.petercallesen.com/about/

Materials and Processes

      "Lately I have worked almost exclusively with white paper in different objects, paper cuts, installations and performances."  A large part of Callesen's work is made from A4 sheets of paper. He says he uses this as it is probably the most common and consumed media used for carrying information today and adds: "This is why we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper."

Using a fine scalpel and a plain sheet of white paper or card, Callesen cuts away areas of the sheet creating new images often representing life and death. This effect is created because of the positive and negative outcomes.

  He says: "The paper cut sculptures explore the probable and magical transformation of the flat sheet of paper into figures that expand into the space surrounding them. 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.’’ 
   Clearly the processes he uses are very time consuming however very effective. For me to achieve the same level of skill I think it would take a huge amount of pratice. I would like to incorporate his processes somehow into my final piece, though.

Personal Analysis

Callesen's working is very exciting and I appreciate the ornate detail in his work. Also how he can convey a powerful message of life and death, through such simple images.The effect of the ice burgs melting away from the ship is very interesting, also the amount of detail on the sinking ship is amazing and precise.

After creating a response to Callesens work using some of my own objects I understand the amount of detail that goes into his work, also I found it challenging working out what pieces to cut away and which to keep so that the whole thing did not just fall out. On the left is my most successful response as I think it has the most like-ness Callesen's. It is successful as it is very detailed and I really tried to consider which pieces I could take out and from that what was left. Also I worked on white paper which Callesen always does, I think this makes the outcome look more clean cut and fresh. I also created another response to Callesen's work (right). This response was less effective as I believe too much of the paper was cut away, also the piece is not as delicate as Callesen's work is. I think another reason why I think this piece is less effective is because I  chose to experiment by using another yellow paper, I think this takes away from what is happening on the page and is not a crisp as the white paper response. 

Comparison

   I think there are strong links between Peter Callesen and Valerie Jolly's work. They both use very simple material to create pieces of art which are in great detail. Both artists work takes a lot of precision and the more you look at them the more interesting they become. Both artist explore the idea of 3 dimensions in an interesting way. 


      Exploring and researching Peter Callesens work has made me consider ideas for my own final piece. I hope to use his techniques as some of my experimental outcomes were really effective. The simplicity of Callesens works is something I would like to capture in my installation and the techniques would be an interesting way to develop and transform my collected items. I also think it would give the viewer an opportunity to interpret the objects in their own way. Another thing which is interesting to explore is the conflict between the simplicity of using white paper and the paper cut techniques and the complexity of the process of creating the cuts. I would like to possibly pursue this further with a range of different size papercuts and challenge myself with different objects That I have collected.