BEGUILED BY MINIMALISM
A day spent paper cutting. Teasing out faces and character from a white plane of paper with an anticipatory view to creating simple paper animations.
I am beguiled by minimalism.
Quietness.
Calm and slow.
As an antidote to the frenetic bustle of the human world, I am trying to grasp an essential aesthetic communication of suggestion, evocation, initiation. And for that to land with the viewer with an openness and an invitation for reflection and response.
I want my animations and illustrations to provoke a thought process which is conversely fresh and free of preconception: a thoughtless-ness. For them to present a simple suggestion of easy conversation whether with oneself or another.
As with any art form, I wish them to present an invitation to reflect.
My methodology in creating the work is a combination of ideas and empathy. Drawing from my personal interactions with people, feelings, emotion – I fall back on the weight stone of ‘what would I do, think, feel, if this were me?’
To my audience I foresee my animation artwork as a simple uncluttered ask: What do you think? How does this make you feel?
The white paper gives breathing space and calm to the frame. No rush, no expectation and no right or wrong response.
I like the half outline of the head, so that though the facial features are mirrored, only the cutout side folds out and reveals its profile. This gives multiple options for folding and viewing the face. As papercutting creates lines which are double sided – present in reverse on both sides of the paper, when pushed through and folded, the negative space of the facial outline reveals variable views and insights. Again, simple, but exciting and intriguing as to how to explore the sculptural space.
In line with my early animation journey so far, it is another exploration and attempted realisation of 2D into 3D. Not rocket science, but as I have been happily drawing flat 2D my entire life, this tantalising shift into a 3D variation of 2D is a systemic shift for my creative output.
This is definitely not auto pilot.
Booking out photography equipment from the CSM Loan Store for the first time, my initial exploratory process was to take a series of simple photos to document multiple options for composition, expression and lighting.
Manfrotto Photography tripod
Smartphone holder
RGB LED panel Light
The evocative nature of shadow is an exciting aspect. The positive and negative spaces of the papercut figures are augmented by the high contrast extremes of light and shadow, sometimes softened by a merge of greyscale in-betweens.
This is an early-stage exploration of aesthetic with a view to developing a language of evocative story telling through 3D paper manipulation and inventive animation. I imaging bringing in 2D drawn animation to cohabit with my paper characters. Stop motion sequences alongside paper-scapes and found objects.
Let’s see what happens.
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