Su Blackwell

Su Blackwell is most commonly known for her paper sculptures and dioramas. Graduating from the Royal college of Art in 2003 she has then moved on to create detailed sculptures made up of paper and used books to sculpt into dioramas that she displays in wooden boxes. Her choice of material being paper is used to reflect the fragile nature of the world and life in general, she uses irreversible and destructive methods within her work to reflect how easy it is for the destruction of life, hope and ambitions.

With the books that she uses for her sculptures, she gathers them from second hand book stores and always reads the books she uses them first. Reading the words within the books she uses gives her inspiration for the pieces, not only does she read the books she looks at the history of the books, in terms of its damage and appearance taking note of every stain and tear adding to her inspiration and helping her to tell a story with her work.

As for Blackwell's cut-out illustrations, her inspiration is lead by the vulnerability that comes along with childhood. She uses little girl figures and places them in different environments; usually haunting and overwhelming environments to represent the vulnerability over children and childhood in general. Light is also used to set different backlights and set the different tones for the environments that Su Blackwell places her 'little girl' figures in.



With this artist I enjoy the delicacy of her work and the way she has linked her medium to the subject of the vulnerability of the world. I think that linking the subject matter and the materials is important and helps you to tell the story or carry the message further in a piece of work. I'd like to take this on bored and help it inspire me with my upcoming pieces.