Arts Design

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL TURN OF A PAGE

We found the perfect works of art to feature today, on Arts Design day, given that our theme this week is Beautiful Reads. Artist Bronia Sawyer creates stunningly beautiful sculptures out of book pages.

Some are interpretations of body parts -- the spine, the lungs, the pelvis -- while others are interpretations of the mind -- like inkblots, or Rorschach tests.

The pages undulate, sensually, in her rolled pieces, some tipped with vibrant color so that the paper edge becomes as powerful and element as its printed surface. Some are crisply pleated. Some are loosened into light lilting ethereal cascades.

“... through my work I want to understand absorb, accept, appreciate, believe, catch, comprehend, conceive, digest, fathom, get, get the picture, grasp, have, imagine, know, perceive, realize, recognize, sense, think,” explains Sawyer.

Sawyer grew up in the UK in a creative household (she was allowed to paint on the walls!). She developed a passion for paper craft and for using using recycled materials. Later, she fell in love with photography.

She began to photograph her own paper sculptures, playing with light and shadow, and, in doing so, she created incredible abstract images the become another piece altogether.

“I love to explore light colour and texture with my camera.”

There’s another component to Sawyer’s works that add another level of beauty. Sawyer was able to transform her lifelong struggle with words (she’s dyslexic), by creating incredible sculptures made of millions of words printed on pages she might have turned.

The repetitions you see, the carefully curled and folded pages that must each be manipulated by Sawyer, form a pattern are not just shaped by Sawyer’s hands and imagination, they are shaped by her OCD issues. Again, she proudly creates beauty out of challenge.

“Through my book sculptures I combine my old weaknesses with words with my artistic strength, and in doing so, have found that instead of fearing reading and writing, I have grown to love words,” says Sawyer.

Like an alchemist, Sawyer gives printed words a magical new new life. “I see that they are beautiful, they are powerful and can be used like color in a painting to stir the imagination and communicate the magic inside of everybody,” says Sawyer. And that makes for a very special kind of Beautiful Read.