joseph scissorhands: Angela Glajcar: Vital Materiality

Sunday, 12 November 2023

Angela Glajcar: Vital Materiality

Terforation 2022-039, 2022 (detail)

"Paper is a material steeped in historic cultural association. An age-old technology, in its artisanal, fine-art iteration, it is virtually unchanged in its method of production. Familiar to the scribes of ancient China and the Middle East, the ink masters of Japan and Korea and the watercolourists of the Enlightenment, it is a cheap, efficient and portable vehicle for an unmediated transmission of ideas. Glajcar’s deft manipulations place her in a subtle and intimate tradition."

Any artist working exclusively with paper interests me, and this is the reason I was drawn to visit to this marvellous exhibition of paper sculptures by artist Angela Glajcar at Pontone Gallery in Fitzrovia. I was really impressed by the simplicity of the ideas here in contrast to the richness and complexity of the finished sculptures. Glajcar tears papers in a process that she describes as 'terforation' a handmade physical interaction with the most basic of tools - her hands. Once torn Glajcar then layers the papers creating what look like contoured maps or orifices, rabbit-holes and portals to other spaces and places in time. The bleakness of the stark white paper is softened by the gallery lighting conditions producing a subtle range of grey and cream colours adding a sense of depth to these structures. The notion of the artist reflecting the landscape in these works through map-like contoured layering is also emphasised by the smaller sculpted pieces that use torn and curled papers which strongly resemble the unfurling tendrils of fern plants. The torn edges and curled ends of the papers add texture, form and a sense of the presence of the human hand to offset the sense of remove and conceptualism of these pieces. Although completely different in intentions and outcomes I was reminded of the work of artist Kwon Young-Woo working with minimal interventions in paper (here), and also another fellow sculptor in paper Jukhee Kwon whose work I saw earlier this year (here).