Karla Hovde
Artist and Designer
Portfolio > Paper Cutting
Paper Cuttings Inspired by Karla’s Travels
Following a year of living in Bangladesh and traveling around Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, Karla was struck by the beauty and graceful lines she saw in the women wearing saris and the South Asian arabesque patterns and architecture she saw. She used this as inspiration for her latest series of paper cutting art.
Holey Spaces Gallery Exhibit
"The process of paper cutting comes with a set of rules inherent to the unforgiving nature of paper. I allow myself a improvosational, organic style to push agianst those limits.
Each mark, each cut is permanent; there is no forgiveness for mistakes. An accidental crease is a crease forever. Lose your grip on the knife and slice through something, and it is impossible to re-connect. Cutting into paper compromises its structural integrity, so each cut must be thought out to prevent the paper from becoming too fragile. The top must be strong enough to support the weight of the bottom. Unkike other mediums, with unforgiving paper, I allow myself any amount of freedom and improvisation.
Holey Spaces is a bit of a pun on the holes that make up paper cutting art. But really, the process of making the paper cuttings also took on a ritualistic, meditative tone. The act of cutting, separating, and removing sounds almost violent, but in a way, paper cutting is a destructive process that is simultaneously constructive. If one doesn’t take apart and remove parts of the paper and create holes, the art is never born.
I can easily trace my first interest in fine arts paper cutting to receiving my first book on the subject, Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Craft soon after I started college. I got hold of my first X-Acto knife in Barbara Fast’s Foundations of Design class in my first semester of college, and I’ve been cutting paper ever since."
-Artist Statement, Karla Hovde, 2015
