Most people who stand in front of my work think they’re looking at woven textile, ceramic or stone. The read changes with the texture , and that’s exactly the point. They reach out to touch it, scratch it, knock on it ; as if the material itself holds the answer. It doesn’t. I do.
Through this approach, I explore paper sculpture as a contemporary artistic medium, transforming a humble material into sculptural reliefs that challenge perception. Not the paper of sketchbooks or packaging ; an ancient, cellulose-based matter, worked by hand, built layer by layer until it becomes something else entirely. Something that reads as mineral, as earth, as skin.
Paper has been shaped by human hands for centuries. But somewhere along the way it became associated with the disposable, the temporary, the cheap. My work is a deliberate reversal of that assumption.
Through layering, sculpting and years of material experimentation, I push it to its limits ; until it carries the weight of stone without its heaviness, the depth of ceramic without its fragility.
In a hotel lobby, a suite, an exceptional interior, the effect is immediate. A presence that stops you. A surface that invites touch. A material that seems to breathe. And underneath all of it ; paper, reinvented by hand into something that didn’t exist before.
There are thousands of ways to dress a wall. Very few leave a lasting impression on the people who live with them. That’s what I’m after : not a surface, but an experience. Not decoration, but a sculptural presence that changes the way a space feels.
And it starts with paper.
This article is part of Material Words, a space exploring material transformation, sculpture and perception.