Papercut Art by Pippa Dyrlaga

Intricate papercut art created with nothing more than an X-Acto knife and a single sheet of paper by artist Pippa Dyrlaga based in the UK. She first started papercutting in 2010 while studying for her Masters in art and design and was encouraged by the positive feedback after submitting a few experiments she worked on for a few months.

Dyrlaga’s work is inspired by animals, nature, architecture and her surroundings. They are first drawn out by hand on the reverse side of the paper and then cut using a scalpel. Her attention to detail is really astounding such as her interpretation of Durham Cathedral which she states in an interview was her most intensive work.

But how exactly does she make all those minute cuts so perfectly so as to create an enchanting image with the sum of them? They unobtrusively hearken back to a time when patience in creating art was a virtue and all that was needed was the artist and their medium.

“The process of making the work is as significant to me as the finished piece,” Pippa says, citing that she finds it to also be, “very calming and meditative.” Having originally studied Contemporary Creative Practice at Leeds Metropolitan University from where she graduated in 2006, it was only while studying for her Masters in Art and Design (she graduated in 2011) that she began pursuing her art in earnestness. “I was trying to find my own way of working and was experimenting with a lot of different techniques, both illustrative and 3D work,” she tells Yatzer. “I was looking at lots of different things like shadow, Plato’s cave allegory, and also animal archetypes. The silhouettes were a natural progression. I fell in love with it immediately and it really made sense to me as a visual style.”  

You can see more of Pippa Dyrlaga’s work on Instagram or at her website.