Cut And Paste: Works of Paper Exhibition Guide
Cut and Paste: Works of Paper focuses on the ways contemporary artists manipulate paper to create remarkable drawn, sculptural, assembled, woven, and folded works of art. From detailed hand cutting to mark making, draping and folding, casting and silhouettes, these wall-bound and sculptural reliefs consider the countless possibilities of the medium of paper. This exhibition celebrates the versatility and vitality of an ancient material that has been reinvented and reinterpreted through the skill of the 11 artists on view.
As part of the triennial series of traveling exhibitions Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia, organized by the Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, and the Lyndon House Arts Center, Cut and Paste: Works of Paper reaffirms the diverse and creative pool of artists living and working in Georgia today.
This program is supported in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The Council is a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. The presentation of the exhibition at Telfair Museums is organized by Erin Dunn, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Lucha Rodriguez, Bursting (detail), 2019, Hand-cut paper, Acrylic, Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: The work is light and surface. Exercises on seeing and perceived reality. The vast spatial presence hidden within a single material made visible through precise cuts into a surface. Patterns and new planes become visible depending on our perspective and physical nearness to the work of art. Some might view single solid flat colors while others see intimate detail and complexity created with light and shadows. It encourages viewers to know the work not by their first impressions but by taking a long hard look at what’s really inside. The work is not about a fixed or set image. It is a continuous sensory experience of light and surface. In the simple act of witnessing light on paper we are subjected to our human sensory limitations, but we can also learn to internally alter our perceived reality because it is intrinsically tied to contextual and cultural norms.
Lucha Rodriguez holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work ranges from etchings, monoprints, and colorful silkscreens to immersive multilayered installations of cut paper, each created in pink–the artist’s signature color. Born in Venezuela, Rodriguez currently lives and works in Atlanta.
Jerushia Graham, Left to right: From Where I Stand #2, 2019, From Where I Stand #3, 2019, From Where I Stand #1, 2019, Papercut, Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: The From Where I Stand series started as a response to the increasing hostility directed toward Black and
Brown bodies in society and toward the natural world. I consciously did not want to create tragic or violent images, instead choosing to create figures that look without and within, only to shake their heads at the absurdity of humanity. We are each of us the problem and
the solution.
Jerushia Graham is currently the museum coordinator for the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking. She earned an MFA in book arts/printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BFA in fabric design and printmaking from the University of Georgia. Graham nurtures socially minded introspection through her art and builds welcoming collaborative experiences through her workshops and curatorial projects. She lives and works in Atlanta.
Matt Haffner, Left to right: Tire Pile, 2015, Rolling Thunders, 2015, Cut paper, Acrylic, Courtesy of the artist and whitespace Gallery
Artist’s Statement: The thing about living near the tracks is you realize they are always a divide. This work is about the memories of my home, of my family, of stories that were told to me by my dad, and coming to terms with how these things have shaped me as an artist. It is also about evoking a sense of place that is specific yet difficult to summarize. The layers and transparency that are evident in this work are about memory, loss, nostalgia, and a love for the inner city in all its complexities. These cut-paper works are an exercise in simplicity and nuance. Like most of my work, they use humble materials and simple processes and elevate them through innovation and meticulous care.
Matt Haffner is a photographer as well as a mixed-media and installation artist. He is a professor of photography and video at Kennesaw State University. He lives and works in Atlanta.
Matt Haffner, Hanging: Fallen God–Runners, 2015; Fallen God–Dunks, 2015, Cardboard, Courtesy of the artist and whitespace Gallery
Artist’s Statement: The thing about living near the tracks is you realize they are always a divide. This work is about the memories of my home, of my family, of stories that were told to me by my dad, and coming to terms with how these things have shaped me as an artist. It is also about evoking a sense of place that is specific yet difficult to summarize. The layers and transparency that are evident in this work are about memory, loss, nostalgia, and a love for the inner city in all its complexities. These cut-paper works are an exercise in simplicity and nuance. Like most of my work, they use humble materials and simple processes and elevate them through innovation and meticulous care.
Matt Haffner is a photographer as well as a mixed-media and installation artist. He is a professor of photography and video at Kennesaw State University. He lives and works in Atlanta.
Teresa Bramlette Reeves, Left to right: Prom Dress, 2014–16, Watercolor on tissue paper, Folded & bound;
Associated objects: Photograph of artist’s mother wearing prom dress; Photograph of artist wearing Prom Dress, Watercolor, Courtesy of the artist and whitespace Gallery
Artist’s Statement: For many years, my work revolved around ideas of mutable histories and inconsistent narratives. I visualized the storage of memory fragments, the possibility of retrieval, the potential for multiple interpretations, and the personal and institutional desire to edit, rewrite, and obscure history. This series considers painting itself as an artifact; a remnant suggestive of a story; an object preserved and encased. The folded paper paintings serve as a tribute to my mother and her generation that came of age in the 1930s and 1940s. I made life-size replicas of paper doll clothes and housewares in paper. I then had photographs made of my engagement with these objects, a way of breathing momentary life into them. After this brief inhabitation, I folded each into a compact form to be re-presented as a fragment of a particular time and place.
Teresa Bramlette Reeves was born in Athens, Georgia, and received a BFA degree in drawing and painting from the University of Georgia, an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a doctoral degree in art history from the University of Georgia.
Teresa Bramlette Reeves, Left to right: Everyday Dress, 2014–16, Pencil, Prismacolor pencil on paper, Folded & bound; Associated objects: paperdoll dress, c. 1940; Photograph of artist wearing Everday Dress, Watercolor, Courtesy of the artist and whitespace Gallery
Artist’s Statement: For many years, my work revolved around ideas of mutable histories and inconsistent narratives. I visualized the storage of memory fragments, the possibility of retrieval, the potential for multiple interpretations, and the personal and institutional desire to edit, rewrite, and obscure history. This series considers painting itself as an artifact; a remnant suggestive of a story; an object preserved and encased. The folded paper paintings serve as a tribute to my mother and her generation that came of age in the 1930s and 1940s. I made life-size replicas of paper doll clothes and housewares in paper. I then had photographs made of my engagement with these objects, a way of breathing momentary life into them. After this brief inhabitation, I folded each into a compact form to be re-presented as a fragment of a particular time and place.
Teresa Bramlette Reeves was born in Athens, Georgia, and received a BFA degree in drawing and painting from the University of Georgia, an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a doctoral degree in art history from the University of Georgia.
Betsy Cain, Left to Right: Shredhead #3, 2018, Shredhead #4, 2018, Oil on Yupo paper (shredded), Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: Working on paper has been a continuing method of discovery in my artistic practice for over fifty years. The ‘shred’ drawings have their own evolution, initiated in part by a mistake. Mistakes open pathways. In this instance, the ‘mistake path’ led to disrupting the paper with a razor blade. In the beginning, the shreds were meant to evoke the floating salt marsh grasses on the surface of tidal waters, a seasonal offering when the grasses die back and become sustenance for many organisms. Subsequently, I did a series celebrating the explosive beauty of indigenous long leaf pine or ‘fire tree,’ using the carving of shreds to suggest pine needles. Currently, the shreds cover suggested figures and forest landscapes with cuts and slices; a scarring of sorts, but a deliberate scarring, like tattoos. The scarring is the drawing.
Betsy Cain is a painter who has maintained an active independent studio practice in Savannah for thirty-eight years. Her work includes paintings, works on paper, and cut-outs, influenced by the salt marshes, tidal creeks, and barrier islands surrounding her home. In 2011, Telfair Museums organized Besty Cain: in situ, a solo exhibition of Cain’s work.
Betsy Cain, Into the Woods #1, 2017, Oil on Yupo paper, Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: Working on paper has been a continuing method of discovery in my artistic practice for over fifty years. The ‘shred’ drawings have their own evolution, initiated in part by a mistake. Mistakes open pathways. In this instance, the ‘mistake path’ led to disrupting the paper with a razor blade. In the beginning, the shreds were meant to evoke the floating salt marsh grasses on the surface of tidal waters, a seasonal offering when the grasses die back and become sustenance for many organisms. Subsequently, I did a series celebrating the explosive beauty of indigenous long leaf pine or ‘fire tree,’ using the carving of shreds to suggest pine needles. Currently, the shreds cover suggested figures and forest landscapes with cuts and slices; a scarring of sorts, but a deliberate scarring, like tattoos. The scarring is the drawing.
Betsy Cain is a painter who has maintained an active independent studio practice in Savannah for thirty-eight years. Her work includes paintings, works on paper, and cut-outs, influenced by the salt marshes, tidal creeks, and barrier islands surrounding her home. In 2011, Telfair Museums organized Besty Cain: in situ, a solo exhibition of Cain’s work.
Imi Hwangbo, Top to bottom: Lepidoptera IV, 2010, Archival ink on hand-cut Mylar, Troubadour, 2013, Archival colored pencil on hand-cut Mylar, Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: My work explores notions of desire through an expanded approach to drawing. The imagery is drawn from Korean decorative arts, with reference to an iconography of desire for harmony, longevity, fertility, and good fortune. My works are constructed with paper that is meticulously colored, hand-worked, and layered so that sculptural forms emerge. Evocative of the decorative arts, my works are alluring to the eye and highly crafted over the entire surface. Light is used as a medium to convey the image, with patterns gaining depth through the translucent layering of light and shadow. These works incorporate a sculpted negative space within the patterns, a void defined by the edges of cut paper. The edges of the works are where the image dissolves and becomes physically immaterial. As the image dematerializes both pictorially and physically, it suggests a moment where the real and the imagined intersect.
Imi Hwangbo received a BA from Dartmouth College and an MFA from Stanford University. She lives and works in Athens, Georgia.
Samuel Stabler, Left to right: Untitled (Pattern Floral/Andre 3000), 2018, Untitled (Pattern Floral), 2018, Pen and acrylic on paper, Collection of the artist
Artist’s Statement: I have been working and reworking found images my entire career as an artist. For everyone, certain images carry a significant amount of importance. The images that stay in my memory come from personal moments, relationships, hobbies, and passions that then get used in my paintings. As a student of art history, many of my images come from the great paintings of the Old Masters, including in the form of still lifes and historical paintings. As a fan of pop culture, I also reuse images from music, sports, film, and daily life. In reusing them, I use my own language to communicate new ideas about aesthetics, and I hope this creates a unique narrative. My passion for minimalism and Bauhaus thought also emerges as I partner different grids with the images. The final result is something new and unique to every viewer.
Samuel Stabler studied at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London and the University of Georgia. He lives and works in Athens, Georgia.
Kalina Wińska, Left to right: Atmospheric Gaze #6, 2016, Atmospheric Gaze #7, 2017, Graphite, Colored pencils, and Gesso on Yupo, Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: In my recent works, I explore various ways of observing and visually comprehending the weather through direct and indirect means. Issues such as our ambivalent relationship to climate change, concepts of weather modification, and the human drive to control natural phenomena resurfaced and provided more focused direction to my formal manipulations with materials and tools. These mixed-media drawings on paper or panel formally explore indexical shapes of clouds in combination with meticulously layered symbolic signs of targets or molecular formulas of greenhouse gases. The variety of color, shapes, and symbolic and expressive marks and lines are inspired by surface weather analysis data codes. I think of them as abstracted snapshots of cloudscapes visibly marked with human activity. They express my worries and anxieties about what science and data reveal: the undeniably harmful consequences of human impact on the quality of air and life on earth.
Kalina Wińska grew up in Poland. She earned her MFA from the Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw and the University of Florida. Currently, she is an associate professor at Valdosta State University teaching drawing and foundation-level courses.
Elizabeth Lide, Left to right: Cookie Press, 2016, Is This the Center?, 2016, Paint, Gesso, Graphite, Collage on handmade Vietnamese paper, Courtesy of the artist and whitespace Gallery
Artist’s Statement: Preparing to work on a solo exhibition, Putting the House in Order, I organized rooms in my home and studio, allowing me to think more clearly. Touching and seeing objects, art, and papers with fresh eyes triggered associations and memories. I chose six objects passed down from my grandparents, made rubber molds, and created multiples using paper pulp and pigment or plaster, fabric, and hair. I made drawings in which I organized two-dimensional space in ways similar to my approach in the spaces where I live and work, offering some order and setting up personal challenges to solve. Once again, my inclinations and methods were both meditative and contradictory.
Elizabeth Lide, a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has a BFA from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia and an MFA from Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. She lives and works in Atlanta.
Hannah Israel, Left to right: Untitled (Forms), 2017, Form II, 2017, Graphite on paper, Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Statement: Hannah Israel draws beauty out of the tangible and intangible materials as a poetic gesture that reflects the fragility of the world. Without a specific reference point, she investigates line, volume, texture, shape, and form. Israel is interested in using information as a form of abstraction. The nature of her work maps our relationships by illustrating how fragile time can be and the predictable nature of our experiences based on the world around us. Imagined language is the root of her work. She is fascinated by cultures that use the same symbols and patterns to create maps of their land and their dreams. This lack of distinction between fantasy and reality opens up the way we can think about our world.
Hannah Israel lives and works in Columbus, Georgia. She received her MFA in sculpture from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Israel is currently a professor of art and the gallery director at Columbus State University.
