Peter Callesen is a Danish artist, who transforms 2D sheets of the plain paper, usually white into highly complex and intricate 3D installations. He has a great understanding of the relationship between how the flat 2D image, along with the 3D image will lie together to create an overall impact and meaning. Each creation is made from only a single piece of paper, where he creates the 3D objects from only the paper which has been removed for the 2D image. The flat negative and positive spaces have a significant importance for the overall impact of his creations for example; they often act as the shadows of the objects or they even highlight the contrast between the 3D object and the flat paper it evolved from.
The message which is portrayed in most of his creations is a sense of tragedy and desperation from the will of wanting to escape; whether it be birds which are half stuck down and half cut away or people who still attached to the paper and trying to run away from a fire.
Callesen is also highly influenced by his surroundings and nature where he has created flowers, trees, birds and even waterfalls. The thin nature of paper therefore compliments this subject with it being delicate and frail and so his creations therefore give a stronger impact rather than if they were created with a denser material.
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| Distant Wish |
Callesen uses this minimalistic media as he feels “…it the most common and consumed media for carrying information today…” “… and this is why we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper.” Therefore by taking this media back to its original blank form by removing the information, he has found “…a material that we can all relate to.” [1] The fact paper is a neutral colour also allows him to create a wide spectrum of subjects without the material interfering and contradicting the message.
His installations range from a framed A4 size of paper, to a staggering life size paper structure filling a whole room. Callesen creates these 3D installations with a fine scalpel and dentist tools to carefully cut out his immaculately detailed illustrations, followed by folding and gluing them together.
I find that the white paper gives his creations the illusion that the structures are in the process of coming to life, along with the fragility of the paper it feels that the structure is slowly evolving from its original flat form. This then creates movement and a sense that we the viewer can decide how it has developed from that one form to the other. Some of the movements are also thought provoking as we do not know how the situations occurred for example; the people running away from the fire, and so we are free to imagine our own interpretation.
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| Running Fire II |
My most recent piece of work which has been influenced by Peter Callesen’s creations, is an installation from my Childline project. The installation is a billboard, which shows a puppet trying to escape. The puppet represents an abused child, and the hand holding the puppet is the abuser and when the strings, and the puppet are cut away from the flat page and start to break free from being abused the puppet starts to become three dimensional as it comes off the page.
[1] http://www.petercallesen.com/about, (accessed – 10/03/12)
