Poetry in Paper

Paper is a fascinating material, that for centuries has played a central role in our everyday lives. We have used paper to exchange ideas, communicate, write letters, papers, laws, and contracts. In the exhibition Poetry in Paper, we are going to explore art made in paper. A thought-provoking combination with and through the use of books, authorship, poetry, and digital art, where books are experienced in new and surprising ways. The museum’s exhibition of an original H.C. Andersen cut was also a part of the special exhibition. The exhibition is supported by Kulturministeriet.

Participating artists:

Su Blackwell (1975)

creates paper sculptures and three-dimensional dioramas. It is often centred around the maiden character who is placed in a fairytale and poetic world, where curiosity and volatility are staged in folkloric-inspired frames. In her work process and imagery, she explores feelings and atmospheres like melancholy, and anxiety as well as childhood’s fragility, innocence, and wonderment. Su Blackwell reflects, in her art, the implicit fragility that lies in dreams, ambitions, and life itself. This reflection is expressed in her treatment of the paper that she exposes to irreversible and to some extent destructive changes with subsequent recreation in new contexts. Blackwell was born in the industrial town of Sheffield but today she lives in south-England’s Hastings where she creates her art. Besides her exhibitions of book sculptures in the whole world, she also has illustrated The Fairytale Princess, a collection of seven classical fairytales. Blackwell shapes fairytale 3D stories that grow directly out of the book - out of the words on the book’s pages. At Museum for Paperart the book sculpture The Little Match Girl is shown.

Amanda Betz (1978)

challenges the limits of paper as a material and works with many different manual and mechanical manufacturing methods. In this exhibition, Amanda Betz exhibits a series of works each of which explores shape and space. With the poetry collection Close to Nature, Betz observes the fields and grain through a lens inspired by, among other things, the Japanese rock garden and its “zen state”. The fusion of artwork and poetry, which takes place in an open dialogue between language, paper, field, and bog, was created in collaboration with Peder Frederik (1978), who graduated from Forfatterskolen in 2006. Using the Danish fields as a meditative space, Amanda Betz’s works seek to achieve and show the tranquillity experienced through nature and its rhythms. Betz graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in 2005 and frequently works at the intersection of art, design, and architecture. As an architect, Amanda Betz always uses paper as a starting point for her work. In collaboration with Peder Frederik, she is creating a poetry collection that is a dialogue between paper and words. Close to Nature is the working title, and it is all about looking at Danish nature through Japanese eyes. Close to Nature is supported by Danmarks Nationalbank, L. F. Foght, Aage and Johanne Louis Hansen, Republikken, and Statens Kunstfond Projektstøtte.

Cecilia Levy (1963)

is a Swedish artist as well as a former bookbinder and graphical designer. Since 2009 she has experienced among others with starch and paper mache techniques with which she transforms paper from old books into three-dimensional objects. In her work, the artist plays with destruction and re-creation. She destroys books and then recreates them in new forms and expressions. When Levy selects her sheets and books, she pays special attention to each book’s specific history, wear, use, and distinctiveness, allowing it to live on in a new context. Cecilia Levy’s works can be seen at the National Museum of Sweden and have been exhibited internationally. In the exhibition Poetry in Paper, Levy presents a selection of works where her rethinking of old paper sheets and book pages is evident in new shapes and figures.