Big pictures from tiny structures
- Ferri models paper into tiny, assembled sculptures
- She uses various types of traditional paper
- Nature and organic shapes are her main inspiration
Ferri Garcès tells us about her poetic world through the art of paper. Originally from Iran, she studied Fine Arts in Paris, and first started her career as a graphic and textile designer. But it is through paper that she really found the means to express her creativity with complete freedom. Since 2000, Ferri has been exploring the transformative power of this material. From folding to pleating, her expertise lies in the meticulous gestures she has perfected to shape paper into small structures. She crafts small folds, just like miniature sculptures, and multiplies them to form a whole. Ferri uses different types of specific raw paper, which she delicately colours with ink to underline a subtle interplay of light and texture.
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
In 2000, I stopped working as a textile designer and discovered traditional papers from many parts of the world. That is when I got the idea of working with all kinds of paper. As well as washi and handcrafted papers from the Himalayas, I have also worked with bible paper, tracing paper, and recycled printed paper such as telephone directories.
I use different types, like tracing paper, Mulberry paper or washi paper. Not all papers are suitable for my work. For my sculptural pieces, the paper has to be thin, solid yet flexible. Some papers simply cannot withstand twisting and folding.
My work is a continuation of the paper-making tradition. From the European 'paperolles' of the 17th century to the thousand-year-old paper-working tradition of Korean and Japanese artists. For me, innovation lies essentially in the creation of new forms.
The emotion I felt, for the first time, when hanging one of my works in a gallery. After a long period of work, to be able to contemplate it freed from its creative context and detached from me was very moving. I went from being a creator to being a spectator.
