CUT OUTS

I started creating cuts out artworks to assist with my personal design process for accessories and clothes. Not only was it a way to explore the unpredictability of shapes and volumes, but it also allowed for the chance to layer colours and create new combinations. The series of photographs above document how I was playing with different shapes and altering the layout before sticking down my final design. While the final outcome is a fixed piece, I find that photographs capture this beautiful process of visual and physical artistic exploration, a search to find a voice in different forms and arrangements; this might give expression to a shape that was previously unknown to the eye. It is the endless design possibilities that can be achieved through using the simple tools of scissors and paper that renders this process so dynamic. The form of this "clutched" bag developed from the concept of a simple hand-held bag (a historical accessory used across the centuries) and yet I wanted to modernise any symmetry by creating these abstracted details that constantly pushed a tangible identity. The process of cutting the paper without a fixed idea of an outcome allowed me to develop this series of images which demonstrates that not only should a potential outcome of a bag be considered as an entity in itself but also the process that led to its creation it as integral to its identity. For me, the cut outs are as important as the final product - the dialogue between 2d and 3d in inseparable. Below are some other "bag" concepts that developed as a result of my visit to the Isokan Building in London. the clarity of the white modernist architecture speaks of dynamism in the shadows and highlights and this led me to create cut outs that speak of the architectural lines but also the contrast in tones, which is translated in my contrasting use of blue and yellow. Below this page are some lamp designs which are rooted in my research into art deco design. It is therefore that the product of my path into cut outs has given visual expression to a dialogue between not only fashion and architecture but also to furniture. As I continue t0 push the process of cut outs, I would love to be able to produce a series that speaks alongside clothing. The cut outs are not only 2d works but a fabric in themselves, a textural layering that plays with abstraction and reality.