Gold Fine Arts and Art Installation Design · 2021
Zen Paper Quilling
by Xue Wang
- A' Design Award 2021 Gold Winner in Fine Arts and Art Installation Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Dream Studio
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 65,506
- Verification code 4FE7B3E7C6 · Verify this award
About Zen Paper Quilling
Zen is a handmade paper quilling artwork made for wall decoration. Paper quilling is a technique in which coloured paper strips are curled and folded into circles, curves and wavy lines, then glued onto cardboard to create a three-dimensional surface. Zen is built from coloured paper strips one centimetre wide, rolled into large and small coils and arranged by size, shape and colour contrast. Many folding and curling methods were tested to obtain gradient colours in paper. The framed piece measures 300 x 400 x 15 mm.
Xue Wang's Zen Paper Quilling exemplifies the contemporary renaissance of paper quilling, a venerable decorative art form with roots extending through centuries of monastic craft traditions, elevated here to the realm of fine art installation through extraordinary technical mastery and profound conceptual ambition. The work participates in a lineage of meditative making practices wherein the repetitive act of coiling, shaping, and positioning each individual paper element becomes itself a form of contemplative discipline, the physical process embodying the spiritual journey toward centered awareness that the finished mandala represents. Wang's chromatic choices demonstrate remarkable sophistication, orchestrating hundreds of distinct hues into a harmonious visual symphony that never descends into chaos despite its maximalist density, each color finding its proper place within the overall schema through careful attention to value relationships and temperature transitions. The technical accomplishment evident in the varied coil sizes, from minute seed-like spirals requiring extraordinary manual dexterity to larger loose forms that display the paper's material qualities of flexibility and memory, speaks to years of dedicated practice and refined skill. Thematically, the work engages enduring human fascinations with cosmic order, the relationship between unity and multiplicity, and the capacity of patient handwork to create objects of transcendent beauty. The radial composition, emanating from a brilliant white center that may suggest enlightenment, pure consciousness, or primordial creative energy, invites contemplation of how complex wholes emerge from simple repeated elements, how chaos resolves into pattern, how individual moments accumulate into lifetimes of meaning. What daily rituals in one's own life might, through patient repetition, construct something of comparable luminous wholeness?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This paper artwork made by hand, Xue used 1 cm wide colored paper strip, to make large and small rolls to draw lines with dots, and draw surfaces with lines, make dense paper rolls through a variety of permutations and combinations of size, shape, color contrast to achieve unexpected effect.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The size of the illustration is 300 x 400 x 15 mm. It is used for print or wall decoration. This piece is framed in a hardwood frame with UV Protected glass.
- Tags
- Paper, quilling, handcraft, paper-art, design, handmade, paper roll, paper craft, paper art work
- Production Technology
- Use various long paper strips with a width of 1 cm to make various elements such as circles, curves, and wavy lines by curling and folding, and then paste them on cardboard to present the 3D effect of the work.
- Design Challenge
- Xue always try to develop a technique that has never been used by anyone before and creates different visual effects. Because paper is a material that cannot be mixed as easily as paints, so she need to try various folding and curling methods to achieve the desired color gradient and contrast effect.It is both tough and soft. she always challenge all the possibilities of paper, to complete seemingly impossible tasks.
- Project Duration
- This work took three months to complete in Paris, and be invited to participate in UNESCO's activities in paris.
- Operation Flow
- Paper quilling is an art of paper rolls, which use colored long paper strips with a width of 1-3 centimeters to express the work by curling and folding. Curves, wavy lines, and circles are elements that often appear in XUE's works.
- Research
- Paper is a material that is not easy to mix colors with each other. XUE tried various folding and curling methods to find a method that can express gradient colors, and finally made this rolled paper work break the paper's restrictions on gradient colors. A large number of bright colors are used to express the complexity of the world, and the calm faces under the colors represent the calm state of mind in the flashy world.
- Inspiration
- No matter how noisy and bustling the outside world is, XUE still hopes to keep her inner peace and create an artwork that can truly awaken people's self awareness. One day, she saw a picture of a woman smiling with her eyes closed, very peaceful and satisfied, XUE was touched by her expression, so she created this artwork to express a peaceful, calm attitude towards life and a strong and confident heart like Buddha, as if everything is about to sail, full of hope. It is a starting point, beginning, budding, and full of energy.
- Image Credits
- Photographer:Clinton LIU
- Patents
- XUE WANG, 2020