Vibrant street life and urban scenes familiar with locals carved in black paper, backlit by yellowish light, are telling the story of Taiwan and its people at a solo exhibition by papercut artist Johan Cheng (成若涵).
It is Cheng’s first solo exhibition in Taiwan — which has opened at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei and runs until April 6 — held shortly after her first-ever solo exhibition was held in Tokyo last year.
Cheng said she has been creating papercuts for 15 years after finishing studying agriculture at university.
Photo courtesy of Johan Cheng
“Life in Taiwan has invariably been a key creative element in my work,” she told the Taipei Times, adding that she is committed to incorporating local history into her work.
Yancheng, Nation. 38, Home represents the time-honored port town of Yancheng District (鹽埕) in Kaohsiung, while Hometown: Taipei’s East District depicts the bustling streets of one of the trendiest shopping areas in Taiwan.
The Yancheng piece was created by superimposing six layers of papercuts to produce a blend of the present and the past, Cheng said.
The layer closest to exhibition visitors shows what the artist saw with her own eyes when she visited the district, while the deeper layers represent the scenes described by local community elders or in historical documents, she said.
Cheng explored her career options and finished her first artwork, My First Piece: KTV, while she was convalescing from a car accident.
“I recalled that I enjoyed cutting and pasting while I was little. I bought splendid colored papers to create handmade cards as a gift for my friends and parents on their birthday,” she said.
While Cheng’s parents were supportive of her following her passion to build a lifetime career, British papercut artist Rob Ryan’s creations also inspired her.
“He made me realize that papercut art can go beyond the red, symmetric patterns of traditional papercut window decorations,” she said.
Cheng said Ryan’s works have a rather dreamy touch, while hers tend to be more realistic and focused on people.
“I believe people are the key to shaping cultural scenes of a place,” Cheng said. “That’s why I think it animates scenes when there are people interacting socially or doing something — even though it might be trivial.”
Cheng grew up in Taipei and did not leave her home and family even while in college, but creating papercuts led her out of her comfort zone.
“The creative path compelled me to open my mind and venture into unfamiliar environments,” she said, adding that she considers doing fieldwork and designing compositions the most exhausting.
“I must take notes, compile information, and sort through my story ideas and structures before I can plan a composition,” she said. “So cutting the paper is my favorite part. It is soothing, although I still have to use my mind to decide where to cut.”
For her, the cutting also involves a series of rational decisionmaking moments.
“For example, I would think whether the floor should be hollowed out or left solid, and if it remains solid, the character on the floor must be hollowed out,” she said.
Cheng said she did not think about where to cut until she began to cut the paper, and her pencil drafts were full of curves and lines without colors.
Asked about the exhibition’s illustration showing how to ensure papercut connections in drafts, she said it is for people to understand how papercut works, but not what would happen in her mind.
“I’d have a general picture in my mind when cutting the paper, just as when I composed the work, although its hard to explain,” she said.
Cheng’s Chronicles of Chengnan: Taipei Reimagined won the Citizen Participation Award from the Taipei Cultural Affairs Department in 2022.
Set up at the entrance of the Treasure Hill Artist Village in Taipei, the piece was created jointly with more than 100 residents of the southern area of Taipei.
“We interviewed six local community elders and asked them to draw what their life looks like living there,” Cheng said.
Many were keen to explain the work to passersby, as their stories or creative traces are represented in the work, she said.
Cheng said the name of her solo exhibition’s venue at the park, Fangniangso (芳釀所), or “Fragrance Brewery” in Mandarin, echoes her creative process of “brewing” her perceptions and people’s stories like brewing beer.
“Little things may seem trivial, but add up to our life experiences and affect our happiness,” she said, adding that she hopes the exhibition would remind visitors of the valuable things in life.
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