Kirsty Hall  |  Artist & Curator

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Peter Callesen

Danish artist, Peter Callesen makes amazing sculptures from cut paper.

Peter Callesen: Impenetrable Castle (detail), 2005

I love the simple whiteness and complex, intricacy of his work. Of course, the more complicated papercut sculptures will tend to impress most viewers because of the high level of skill and craft needed to make them – I’m sure they’re his ‘crowd pleasers’. However, in many ways, I’m more impressed by the very simple ones because I think it takes more courage as an artist to exhibit very minimal work. The less you have, the more focus there is on it and the more exact it needs to be.

Peter Callesen: Snowballs (detail), 2005

I’m also rather charmed by the contrast between his incredibly precise papercut work and his loose, exuberant drawings.

Peter Callesen: Drawing from The Dying Swan series

In fact, if you look at the different sections of his site, it’s apparent that he takes very different approaches depending on the medium. However, because he’s working with a central theme of fairytales, it all seems to come together. It’s clear looking at the rest of his practice, particularly his performance work, that ideas of absurdity, futility and even tragedy also play a large part in his thinking.

Posted on August 30, 2007 at 1:58 am  |  Tags: artists

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