Paper cuts

Below you can meet my paper cut universes

The Paper Cut People

Welcome to my universe of paper cut people.

Through my paper cuts, I’m telling the story of the paper cut people, who are trapped deep inside the paper, before I start cutting and creating their shapes and sizes.

I can sense that the paper cut people are caught in their sadness within the paper. They are unfulfilled and have something in their lives that weighs them down. After I start cutting, they are all cut free and given the freedom to travel around in this wonderful and diverse world, we live in.

It’s a universal story about us as human beings and how we must take care of our own lives in order to figure out what makes us unhappy – and how we can find happiness. That’s why all my paper cut people smile and are happy.

Karen Relsters foto af Torben Jarlstrøm Clausens papirklip til udstilling i Japan 2017

On The Move

During the corona lockdown, I – like many other people – had a lot of extra free time. This of course also gave me more time to do my paper cuts.

During that period, I felt like working on developing my paper cut expression and style.

I still wanted to cut people – but in a new way.

Here are my paper cuts from that period: On the move.

Paper Cuts and Photo by Danish Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen

Men In Despair

The long corona shutdown in Denmark gave me plenty of time to develop my paper cuts.

During that period, a lot of new paper cuts emerged.

I call these new paper cuts Men in Despair.

Se all the Men in Despair below. 

The Waste Paper People

I spotted the box of wrapping paper from Christmas Eve. I mean the paper that the packages had been wrapped in.

If you read the sorting instructions, such paper must be recycled as residual waste. This means, in short, that it will be burned off.

I thought:

“Perhaps the scissors can find and release the figures that are currently in the box distributed and fragmented on a lot of colored and discarded paper?”

The scissors did what they do best and cut the limbs of these motley creatures – a glue stick completed the experiment.

Waste Paper Cut Beings by Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen
Waste Paper Cut Beings by Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen
Waste Paper Cut Beings by Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen
Waste Paper Cut Beings by Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen
Waste Paper Cut Beings by Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen
Waste Paper Cut Beings by Paper Cut Artist Torben Jarlstrøm Clausen