KAKO UEDA

Kako Ueda is a Japanese papercut artist, who is based in Brooklyn, NY.

Ueda received education at both Tufts University as well as Pratt Institute.
Although she has worked with other forms of art (drawing, painting...) she
has been focusing mainly on paper cutting for the past 12 years. Her biggest
inspirations for paper cutting were her own Japanese culture as well as the
overall process of cutting to create art. Ueda has now started to mix different
mediums with her cut papers to create something unique and different. She
mixes paints, drawings, collaging into her paper cuts and is very open to
experimenting with to transform her cuts into something more distinctive.

Uedas work always includes some organic beings and shapes, which she
said was her inspiration. I have noticed that within each piece of work there
is always some sort of symmetry within. Although not in the whole pice, the
overall shape and parts of the design always have congruity which gives the
whole piece a very balanced look. She has a variety of pieces, some using
color and some without. I have noticed that the colored ones tend to have
more rhythmic paper cutting, with more repeated shapes. And the solid
colored ones have more movement and contrasting space. Like the skull
piece has many insects crawling outward and plants growing from the top of
the skull. This moves our attention from the face of the skull, where there is
a lot more negative space, especially around the eyes, outwards to where
there is more detailed designs.

julene harrison

Christina Chen - Paper Cut Research

Julene Harrison was born in the UK, but currently resides in Chicago. She
was originally a fashion and constructed textile designer, but has recently
turned to paper cutting. Harrisons work is mainly text based, which is very
different from other papercut artists. Although she works with mainly text,
she still incorporates some sort of design with each of her pieces that help
represent and present the words more visually appealing way. Not only is
she artistically successful, she also has many large clients such as, Target,
Neiman Marcus, Nutella...

What caught my eye about Julene

Harrisons work is how she is able to make
a text based paper cut look visually
appealing, and combine it with intricate
designs so that it looks like art. After
looking at her work, I realized that most of
the words were focused in the center with
a pattern or design around it. This helps
unify each piece and puts the focal point
on the words. Although she doesnt use a
lot of pattern or repeated shapes in her
designs, each piece is always unified
through her ability to use the space
between each letter of her words and
shape of the designs.