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Monday, March 19, 2007

The Silhouette


In the past centuries silhouettes were usually portraits made of the profile of the subject and cut out of black paper mounted on white paper. Simple, and flat looking. My fascination with silhouette began in Italy, where I was studying at the Academy of Fine Art in Rome. There I was turned onto the amazing papercut works of an artist named Ugo Mochi. [1889-1977] A master at achieving the illusion of movement and drama from a simple papercut, his works were done with the skill of a sculptor.

This challenge to envision an entire picture in black and white and then to achieve depth and perception and a sense of movement all cut from one piece of paper, intrigues me and I am drawn to this challenge.

The above papercut is an example of my silhouette work. Black and white, yin and yang, design and abstract pattern at its most simple.



1 comment:

klp said...

I can see the dimension and depth in this cutting...it has great movement too. I noticed that you have many paintings of dogs but no cuttings of them..Will you be doing any in the near future?