sculptures hand cut from a single sheet of paper by nahoko kojima

‘cloud leopard’ by nahoko kojimainstallation view at le beffroi, paris

nahoko kojima‘s artistic medium is paper. her large-scale works are each hand cut from a single sheet, exploring themes of human existence, animals and the forces of nature. her ‘cloud leopard’ took approximately 5 months to finish, and her upcoming work, debuting in the summer of 2013 is ‘byaku’, which thematically follows in the same foot steps. meaning ‘white’ in japanes, kojima is currently scoring the details of the work which will result in a life-size paper version of a polar bear. the composition of each of her sculptures considers negative space just as much as it does the positive, seen through her visually balanced pieces. her work was most recently seen during clerkenwell design week 2013.

nahoko kojima discusses her artistic practicevideo courtesy of solokojima

‘cloud leopard’video courtesy of solokojima

nahoko kojima with her upcoming work ‘byaku’ which means ‘white’ in japanese will hang as a life-size polar bear sculpture

the artist intricately cutting out the pattern for ‘byaku’