THE TECHNIQUE

MEDIUM AND NARRATIVE ELEMENTS

Paper cutting as an art form has been practised for hundreds of years in the East and West, each cultural group developing its own particular style and symbolism. The method used to illustrate The Paper Virgins is primarily a combination of silhouette and Chinese free cuts where the inside of the design is cut into. Like any medium, paper presents specific challenges; one being to create a design from a single sheet of paper with as few detached sections as possible (in line with traditional methods), another to work within the discipline of black and white while still conveying nuances of meaning which would otherwise be expressed in greys.

I have attempted to equate the inherent properties of the medium with underlying themes of the pictures and any similarity to advertising artwork is intentional. Also intentional and perhaps more evident is the influence of photography and film. Although each picture or ‘still’ from The Life of A Virgin is complete of itself, they were constructed to be part of the series not only in narrative, but as an overall composition of complimentary geometric shapes. By defining the medium and format so rigorously, analysis of the subject is clarified and key elements of narrative form the basic images.