Paper Artis

Chris Natrop

 

 

Image found online.

Chris Natrop's work is based on the process of hand-cutting paper. He use a knife to circumvent normal mark-making traditions. This allows himself to overcome a neurological obstacle that would otherwise make it difficult for him to naturally produce straight, unwavering lines. What results is something analogous to a typical line drawing, except in the format of cut paper. These cut-paper drawings can remain either flat and two-dimensional, or multiple pieces can be combined into three-dimensional installations. By using shadow, reflection, and projection, installations often become immersive, fully-realized environments. Since the installations have the greatest sensory impact, these multifaceted worlds tend to be the apex of practice. Over time, an ongoing narrative has emerged within Natorp's work.

 

 Chris Natrop continually find with himself reckoning my particular emotional space to that of my perceptions of the outside world. The intersection of these two planes produces the graphical nature of my work. Using the language of landscape, the cutouts form a dynamic hybrid space with a very specific sense of place. He frequently interpret the finished pieces as an amalgamation of opposing forces: serenity and chaos, alien and terrestrial, peaceful and apocalyptic, natural and mechanical, infinitesimal and astronomical. Because the installations are site-specific, responding to the particulars of interior architecture, their physical existence is essentially ephemeral.

 

 This temporary state, inherent to His installation work, produces a fleeting tension, both tragic and precious. Not wanting to let go, he am compelled to hyper-document my temporary, site-specific work through various photo and video projects. Chris Natop can use the resulting picture images to digitally capture contoured outlines of my cutout drawings. Those electronic silhouettes then become the graphical building blocks for new successive artworks that are fabricated in wide-ranging materials such as metal, mirror, or plastic. In that way, he is very much compelled to producing more permanent, site-specific sculptural pieces that seamlessly respond to its surrounding environment.