I'm really interested in papercut artwork, and have played around with the artwork a bit myself, but after a while I've begun to feel like I've seen it all. There are a few papercut artists on Etsy who are really blowing me away, though, each doing something new and fresh with their X-acto and cardstock. Check out my favorites in this week's edition of Etsy Finds!
Danish artist Peter Callesen creates jaw-droppingly intricate papercut artwork from A4 paper and in large-scale installations. Each work is created from one sheet of paper, be it three-dimensional flowers falling from a bouquet's negative, a hummingbird flying from the page, or a child-size castle crafted from a billboard-sized paper. He uses A4 because he says it is "probably the most common and consumed media used for carrying information today," but we "rarely notice the actual materiality" of it. There is a tragic quality to most of his subjects, whether it's a flower dying, an angel locked in a birdcage, or even an apple reduced to its core. So the frail and delicate paper medium underlines that element of calamity.
See more of his work when you read more
San Francisco's Papercuts have been a hot ticket on the local music scene for a while now. But with its upcoming album, Can't Go Back, the band may really be headed for the big time. I particularly love the track "John Brown," which the Papercuts' label just posted online. Despite some cutting-edge components — Jason Quever's shaky falsetto and the fidgety violins — the song really sounds like something from another era. To listen, read more
