Artist Statement
(Used when applying to galleries for my products to be stocked there)
(Used when applying to galleries for my products to be stocked there)
Jonathan is a papercut artist and graphic designer working in Leeds, UK. Using nothing but paper, a scalpel and inspiration he creates typographic and illustrative designs that focus on both details and simplicity. He is also a full time student in his final year studying a BA HONS in Graphic Design and is due to complete his course within a few months.
Jonathan has a wide range of inspirations that include nature (in particular the repetitive patterns that naturally occur in plants and trees), man made patterns, stories, shapes, paper and its variable uses, fairytales and typography. Graphic design also has a huge influence on his art work as can be seen by the professional finish of his products and the care and attention given to the concepts and ideas behind them.
Having has gained wide exposure on the Internet selling his paper cuts on the website Etsy, under the name mrYen, and contributing to their blog, he has also had his work featured by Etsy several times in their online articles. Through Etsy, he also welcomes commissions and sells to people all over the world, which led to his involvement of the project “Lost Things” which was collaboration between himself and Angela Kohler (an L.A based producer). Jonathan was asked by Kohler to create paper cut designs for a short stop-motion film based on an Alice in Wonderland theme. The short film included an appearance from Alison Sudol from “A Fine Frenzy” who not only stars in the film, but also wrote a piece of music specifically for it and it was produced by Angela Kohler and Ithlye Grifiths, who have recently created adverts for Amazon.com
Jonathan’s paper cut artwork has been featured on many websites and design blogs including, Apartment Therapy, Poppytalk, My love for you is a stampede of horses, Juxtapoz, Domestic Sluttery and DigitalArts Online. His papercut Alice in Wonderland Book cover designs have also been recently featured in the April issue of DigitalArts magazine. He is also a contributing artist to “The New Twenties”, which is a collaborative book to be published by IdN magazine and Society6 and is due out in spring/summer 2010.
His paper cuts are currently for sale at Welcome Home Gallery in Glasgow, Snug Gallery in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, in an online shop named AllThings Original.com and in his own etsy shop at
www.mrYen.etsy.com with negotiations in place to have work stocked in the online shop named uponafold.com which is based in Australia.