A paper cut is made partly from what remains and partly from what is removed. Pippa Dyrlaga’s intricate work makes that relationship especially clear: small openings become patterns, and narrow connections hold a larger image together. The delicacy is visible, but so is the planning behind it.
The drawing is made on the reverse
Most of us think of paper as something to write and draw on rather than a material to build with. British artist Pippa Dyrlaga shows otherwise: she has used simple repro paper as her main medium, and by 2020 she had been working in paper cutting and printmaking in Yorkshire, England, for more than ten years. After drawing a soft outline on the paper, she works through the drawing in parts, gradually adding detail with a precision knife. She works in reverse, so that the finished image appears on the smoother side of the sheet. Her inspiration comes from the nature and folk culture of the English countryside, and her animals and plants combine elements of reality and fantasy with an extraordinary amount of detail and depth.
Photographs of the finished sheet can hide something she values: for Dyrlaga, the stage of production, which takes many hours of patience, is as valuable as the completed work itself. That attention to process gives the original sequence of studio posts below particular value. They belong to the artist’s own record of the work, with their dates and account attribution retained.
How Pippa Dyrlaga makes her paper cuts
The Yorkshire artist’s official biography describes beginning paper cutting in 2010. For her single-sheet works, she draws on the reverse of the paper and uses a scalpel to cut the design by hand. Natural forms are an important part of her visual world.
Working from a sheet means that fine detail has to coexist with structural connections. A shape that looks independent may need a narrow link to the surrounding design. Those links can disappear into a wing pattern or a plant-like curve when the whole image is viewed at once.
What negative space contributes
Look at the openings before looking at the paper. The empty areas help describe the edges of a form just as strongly as the remaining material does. A different background can also change how clearly those openings appear, making presentation part of the experience.
Then follow one continuous line through the work. It is an enjoyable way to notice where a practical connection becomes a decorative feature. The gallery includes selected paper artworks; it should not be taken to mean that every pictured piece uses exactly the same single-sheet construction.
Paper can take another route into detailed form through origami sculpture, where folding rather than removal drives the process. And Raku Inoue’s floral arrangements offer a related interest in delicate natural shapes, using actual petals and leaves instead of cutting their likeness from a sheet.
Another delicate connection between line and surface appears in Susanna Bauer’s crocheted leaves. Fine cotton joins and extends found leaves while allowing their individual textures to remain visible.
For anatomy explored through a different hand-worked material, see Shanell Papp’s crocheted skeleton and organs. The recognizable body structure and visible stitches invite attention at two different scales.
Posts and process videos
Pippa Dyrlaga (@bearfollowscat) on
Pippa Dyrlaga (@bearfollowscat) on
Pippa Dyrlaga (@bearfollowscat) on
Pippa Dyrlaga (@bearfollowscat) on
Pippa Dyrlaga (@bearfollowscat) on
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