Kristen Hassenfeld brings new life to the average everyday fixtures of light that we all hang in our homes. In a truly unique approach, this artist uses paper as her main material in constructing all sorts of floating masterpieces and unparalleled pieces of jewelry.
The young artist began creating these designs with paper in 1999. Building off of the natural desire for wealth and luxury, Hassenfeld decided to create her own form of luxury out of more affordable materials. She honed her craft at the Univeristy and Arizona and the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Most of these illuminated pieces of hers focused on transparent colors such as blue and white.
Pastel colored material focuses the viewers' attention on the natural light and makes each piece, like the ones shown above, into more of a custom chandelier. After looking at a majority of these bland looking pieces the striking red color of her piece Pink Cluster.
The light that comes through these particular paper creations illuminates the room with a surreal pink color. Placing this in one of my own rooms would serve as my own personal escape from reality. It transports my mind back to my childhood, when I would experiment with shapes, colors and different possible methods to put them together. Pink paper clusters draw me into a world just through the incredible shades and patterns coming from shaped papers. Truly unique and insightful pieces of art, such as Hassenfeld's incredible light features, somehow manage this despite their regular setting.
In another way, the cluster of individual paper pieces draws in elements from the natural world. The dangling creations mirror the floating jellyfishes in a fascinating combination of the natural and the fantastic.
Kristen Hassenfeld's gleaming red creation draws in viewers with her own simplistic version of luxury as well as natural fantasy. This man-made escapist ideal is what fascinates me most about her effervescent imaginations.
Citations
Pinar, . "Luxurious Jewelry Made of Paper." My Modern Metropolis. N.p., 17 Feb 2012. Web. 26 Jan 2013. <http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/kirsten-hassenfeld-paper-art-jewels>.
You bring a lot of interesting references to the table in this - wealth, nature (light), childhood, fantasy. I'm interested in your thoughts on the 'everyday' quality of her materials, and how that might impact what these pieces seem to "do" in terms of transporting people to another kind of "mental space".
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