- Born 1981 in Germany
- Self-taught artist
- Paper mache fan
- Admirer of hand-made traditional Asian paper
- Lover of hawk moths
My name is Jan and I create paper-based sculptures for many years. During school time I actually started with creating illuminated paper mache monster heads for the ghost train we set up in the basement of our parents’ house. The technique we used was rather primitive, but given the dark surroundings it still had the intended effects on our sister and any playfellows we got through our self-made ghost train track. I remember the T-Rex head we created was one of the highlights of our tunnel of horror. 🙂
Later on during my biology studies, I got inspired by Dan Reeder’s fantastic dragon sculptures. Paper makes up for the endoskeleton here. Although these creatures are fantasy animals, as a biologist I must say they entail a level of realism that is outstanding.
From there it was only a small step to creating loight sculptures based on paper. During travels to Asia over the years, artful paper lamps created from traditional Asian paper, illuminating houses and streets during the night fascinated me and I began experiencing creating lanterns based on paper and wood. I used special structured Japanese and Korean paper for the lampshades.
So many styles of light sculptures throughout the world fascinated me and I found deep inspiration through the works of light sculptors Cameron Mathieson and Stephen White.
Mixing it with my previously-acquired skills – voilà, born were my glowingwood light sculptures, bringing light to hand-made Asian fibre paper!