Scratching the Surface

Alicia Kelly Artist Statement

My love of paper and it’s suspicious delicacy developed alongside my love of the printed multiple. Manipulating screen prints and various papers led me down the path to the meditative practice of paper-cutting and paper sculpture. My paper and installation works explore this medium and its connection to the third dimension.

This body of paper works, along with their titles, are strong indicators of when each piece was completed during 2020- so far a rollercoaster of emotions. Starting with ideas of isolation vs togetherness (March) seen in ‘We Still Have Room to Grow’ and ‘Dancing Alone, Together’, these pieces are strong in patterns mimicking emotions with a single, repetitive cut.

As the pandemic, an economic crisis, protests and a nationwide political divide envelop our everyday realities, my works began to shift and take on new emotions more chaotic in pattern, line work and a dramatic use of color, seen in ‘Fragile Minds for Fragile Times’ and ‘ Scratching the Surface’ . These most recent papercuts became the result of relearning and reexamining the world and its systems we live in.

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