Elisa Contemporary Art is pleased to present our new gallery exhibit, Paper Cuts. This group show features four artists all creating dimensional artwork from cut paper. The exhibit opens on Thursday, February 15 and runs through April 26 at the Riverdale NY Gallery. The featured artists are: Amy Genser, Ana Marie Hernando, Don Morris and Heidi Whitman.

The exhibit highlights the intricate and highly detailed processes of creating dimensional work from Paper. Our artists use knives and scissors to carefully sculpt each paper. The interconnectedness of each element creates the patterns that draw the viewer into the work with shadows adding additional drama and dimension.

Amy Genser creates dimensional artwork with paper and paint to explore her obsession with texture, pattern, and color. Using techniques she has developed, she tears, cuts, rolls, stacks and collages small tubes of combined handmade papers to present intricate abstractions inspired by the imperfect perfection of the natural world around her. Her patterns are sourced from coral reefs, flowing water and rock formations, satellite images and biological cellular processes. Several of the works on exhibit including “Watch Out for Sea Creatures” and “The Tide is Coming to Grab You” represent Genser’s favorite color palette, “Beach”.

Heidi Whitman’s paper constructions resemble city grids, ancient ruins and blueprints, but they also act as metaphors for the complicated processes of the mind. According to Whitman, “The structure of the city and the structure of the mind are conflated in my paper constructions. I’m interested in states of mind, how experience is translated into thought, how memories are layered, and how dreams jumble reality. Contemporary city grids and plans of ancient ruins are layered and edited along with references to mental networks… Networks of hyper-connectivity are the maps of the contemporary world whether these networks are in the structure of the city, the mind, or the internet. In my reimagined places shape and shadow interact invoking memory, presence, and absence.” These constructions are built from drawings in ink, gouache, and acrylic, carefully cut with a blade or small scissors, and intricately reconstructed with glue and pins.

For Don Morris, his former training as a plastic surgeon has provided the precision for his comic book constructions. Each piece is a multi-dimensional and textural work of art. From a distance, one sees a mass of bright colors and waves of patterns. As one traverses around the art, intriguing and surprising shadows are seen. Upon closer inspection, a story unfolds as the images of super heroes and characters of the comic book can be seen flying, struggling, and climbing in small fragments and vignettes. Word bubbles from the comic book text are carefully selected and are clearly visible throughout the pieces.

Amy Genser creates dimensional paper collages. These colorful, textural, one-of-a-kind wall pieces embody movement and processes. She masterfully manipulates paper -- each piece being cut, rolled and stacked -- to mimic organic forms and natural processes. While starting as flat piles of paper, her artwork builds and grows into 3-dimensional constructions filled with color, texture and patterns.

Today, her work has been exhibited at many venues throughout the United States and is in public and private collections worldwide including a large installation at the Nemours Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children (Delaware), the Ronald McDonald House (San Francisco), Beaches Resort (Turks & Caicos)and Davidoff (UK). She been featured in publications/blogs such as Architectural Digest, Design Milk and This is Colossal.

Ana María Hernando is a contemporary artist originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina and currently living in Colorado. She makes paintings, sculptural installations, drawings, lithographic prints, and textile artwork with a layering of natural and formal elements. She is moved by the transparent actions she finds in the work of women, in the movement of the flowers, and in a loving hand. Her work is in private and corporate collections, including The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth; MN, Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA; Hallmark Corporation, Kansas City, MO; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI and the Fundacion Banco Patricios, in Buenos Aires.

Don Morris was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1935. After finishing his undergraduate work at Tulane, he obtained his doctorate degree at Louisiana State University. The board-certified plastic surgeon developed an interest in contemporary art in the late sixties. Morris began his art career in earnest upon retiring from plastic surgery in 2002. In a very short time from entering the art world, Morris has seen a meteoric rise in his prominence as an artist. His comic book constructions are found in museums and significant collections in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Heidi Whitman’s paper constructions, paintings, and drawings are invented terrains or mental maps. Contemporary city grids and maps of ancient ruins are primary references.

Whitman’s work was featured in Katharine Harmon’s book The Map as Art, Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Her public and private collections include the McMullen Museum of Art, the Boston Public Library, IBM, Simmons College, Bank of America, Boston University, the Federal Reserve, JPMorgan Chase, and Fidelity Investments. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.