Paper artist Gannon cut his own niche

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120110ww.html


Patrick Gannon COURTESY OF PATRICK GANNON

Patrick Gannon admits he loves puzzles. As a literature major and aspiring writer in university, he delighted in deconstructing ideas and consciously pulling together disparate pieces to make a whole. Twenty years later, as a "cut paper" artist in Japan, Gannon, 40, employs the same intellectual techniques, albeit with a different artistic medium.

Cut paper art, or kiri-e as it is known here, originated in China in the early second century, along with the invention of paper.

"When you look at Japanese paper art, kiri-e is the traditional form that came over from China," Gannon explains. "It is typically one layer of paper, usually a black sheet, laid on top of either white paper or with bits of colored paper behind it."

A picture is formed by cutting out the top layer, allowing the empty or negative space to reveal an image. "What I do is essentially kiri-e, but contemporary kiri-e — kiri-e with more layers and with more colors."


Paper view: Among the kiri-e cut paper works created by Patrick Gannon are "Until That Day, I Make My Home Down Here" (2008) (above) and "Cold as the Winter Wind, Sharp as a Fox" (2010). COURTESY OF PATRICK GANNON
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