Girl with Peacock Earrings
Paper quilling has seen a resurgence over the last few years, and it’s arguably all thanks to the handiwork of Yulia Brodskaya. The gifted paper artist re-popularized the centuries-old practice with her delightfully colorful creations. With each passing year, she continues to innovate with her evolving technique.
From typography-based art to portraiture, Brodskaya has tested her paper quilling skills and taken it to new heights. In 2016, she introduced a series of portraits of the elderly that employed a new approach. Rather than curling long paper ribbons, she tightly packed each colorful strip. Her new method allows her three-dimensional artworks to illusively tiptoe the line between sculpture and painting. Each fold serves as a single “brushstroke.”
This year, rather than focusing solely on the elderly, Brodskaya has extended her attention to a younger lineup of subjects. Alternating between decorative and documentary, the paper artist once again experiments with a visually stimulating blend of abstraction and realism. Each tightly packed portrait has its own story to tell, offering a glimpse of narrative, but opening it up to the viewer to fill in the blanks.
To see more of Brodskaya’s innovative work, you can now follow her on her newly minted Instagram account. And if you’re in the UK, the artist will be speaking at the Reasons to: conference in Brighton this September. It’s an annual event for international creatives and developers to take the stage to “inform, inspire, entertain, thrill and educate designers and coders.”
Paper artist Yulia Brodskaya is a quilling genius whose newest work tiptoes the line between sculpture and painting.
Girl with Peacock Earrings (detail)
Girl with Peacock Earrings
Applying the same ‘painting with paper’ technique that I developed in the latest old people portraits.
Spirits
Spirits (detail)
Spirits
Hopefully the title (and image) speaks for itself: this is vaguely inspired by shaman culture and traditions; an attempt to demonstrate that moment of being immersed/submerged into the spirits world.
Embrace
Embrace (detail)
Embrace (detail)
Embrace
This is one of the least colorful artworks, but, technically, my focus was on carefully controlling the direction/flow of thousands of paper strips to make them tell a story with this kind of subtle movement.
Nature Warrior
Nature Warrior (detail)
Nature Warrior (detail)
Nature Warrior
A fantasy warrior design inspired by many things natural (fish/animals colorful patterns and typical features); an imaginary hybrid.
Here’s a time-lapse of Brodskaya carefully constructing her paper art piece Girl with Peacock Earrings:
Yulia Brodskaya: Website | Facebook | Instagram
My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Yulia Brodskaya. Captions also provided by the artist.