Contemporary Silhouettes: The Art of Cut Paper

Contemporary Silhouettes presents intricate work produced in the art form of cut paper. Cutting portraits, generally in profile from black card, became popular in America during the mid-18th century as a cheap but effective alternative to the portrait miniature.

Paper, an affordable medium world-wide, has long had an important role in folk art. Contemporary paper artists draw upon many global folk traditions for inspiration, including Scherenschnitte, chuāng huā, and American portrait silhouettes and they reimagine innovative new handcrafted pieces.

Artists in this exhibit -historic and contemporary- including Elizabeth Alexander, Pamela Dalton, Ernesto Caivano, Fred Liang, Lucy Gibbons Morse, Randal Thurston, Tomas Vu-Daniel, and Yuan Zuo, explore themes of the silhouette: two-dimensional and three-dimensional representation using outlines, configurational drawings, cutouts, dark images contrasted against lighter backgrounds, and editing of background details to produce an outline effect, all to achieve highly intricate and inspiring effects.