Mia Pearlman creates site-specific cut paper installations

(photos above) PENUMBRA (“Plaatsmaken” Netherlands, 2010) appears to emerge through the wall of Plaatsmaken, and eddies around the gallery space. It reflects the dim light of the Northern European skies, cutting through the cloudcover to reveal the occasional beam of light.

New York City based artist Mia Pearlman creates these amazing site-specific cut-paper installations. The common element in these installations is the vortex which takes the viewer on a visual roller-coaster “between actual, illusionistic and imagined space.” Using large sheets of paper, Pearlman makes loose line drawings in India ink. She then cuts out selected areas between the lines to make a new drawing in positive and negative space on the reverse. The final installation usually consists of between 30-80 of these pieces. Pearlman has a wonderful photographic essay which documents her process. Inspiring!

The gracious artist told Sculpture, “I was a late bloomer. Everything has happened in the last five years. I started making cut paper sculpture at the end of 2007, and by the end of the year, I’d had eight shows in three countries.” Currently she is busy preparing to show her latest work, “One” another site specific cut paper installation, at “40 Under 40: Craft Futures” at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. opening July 2012.

(photos above) INRUSH (“SLASH: PAPER UNDER THE KNIFE” October 7, 2009 – April 4, 2010, Museum of Arts and Design, NYC) utilizes the natural light entering through the window cut on the west side of the building to blur distinctions between interior and exterior space. Click here to see how INRUSH was created.

(photos above) SUBITO (PULSE NY 2010)

(photos above) EYE (Centre for Recent Drawing, London, 2008) is a vortex composed of clouds swirling around the sky.

(sculpture)