Paper cutting artist Kroud displays intricate carvings at Artexpo New York

Paper cutting (kirie in Japanese or 切り絵) artist Kroud overlays black and white paper ‘carvings’ created with a craft knife to put together intricate representations of stag beetles, crabs, monkeys and birds. The insects and animals are, per Artexpo’s online biography, “mechanical expressions by paper; the fusion of the inorganic and the organic.”

“For me, to cut is to create space,” Kroud said in a statement on the Artexpo New York website. “Space is said to be a continuum of expanse – an entity that provides places for all material substance to exist concurrently. There have been many arguments around the existence of vacuum, how space relates to objects, the absoluteness and relativity of spatial locality, the existence of space itself, how geometry corresponds to physical space, and so on. I aim to pursue ways of making “space” visible through the art of paper cutouts.”

One should stand about a foot away from Kroud’s artwork in order to fully appreciate the objects he has carved and the intricacy of his designs. He has shown his work all over the world, notably Tokyo, Paris, and New York City.

Photos: Paper cutting artist Kroud – Artexpo New York 2018
all photos by Megan Lee / Meniscus Magazine