The Path to Gondwana

A stroll in the Australian Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Melbourne. Part 2/3.

On entering these gardens, a left turn on the pathway takes us northward past a magnificent Ironbark stand followed by Box and Peppermint Eucalypts, and the distinctive Scribbly Gums with their bark decorated by abstract washes, like paintings. Nothing however, compares with the bizarre form of the “bristly” grass trees. Curious little flowers like Grevillea, Acacia pom-poms and Correa bells festoon the many shrubs frequented by the male Fairy Wrens that dart about accompanied by their twittering harems of inconspicuous females.  Enticingly our pathway changes to a “scribbly” looping form as it leads us into a wonderous landscape of cycads and ferns that once dominated Gondwana in the Palaeozoic Era, 180 Million years ago.

Winner Gold Medal for Creativity, Mondial Art Academia, France 2018

First Prize, LightSpaceTime Gallery, Nature Exhibition, Florida, USA 2018

Sculptured from Hahnemuhle (Germany) 300gsm cotton NOT, Arches (France) 310gsm cotton hot-pressed mould made papers and a variety of handmade Hemp, Flax and Kozo (Mulberry) papers from Awagami (Japan) and other Asian sources, some as light as 4gsm. Single colour Ink wash background and scribbly gum bark.

About Ray Besserdin

32-year career recognized with over 30 local and international awards. Works hang in private and corporate collections in London, Munich, Manhattan, Tokyo, New Zealand and throughout Australia. Entirely self-taught techniques of sculpting dimensionally using only sheet-formed papers creating works that are much like bas-relief. Ray's palette of papers are mostly mould-made cottons and a wide variety of mulberry, hemp and flax fibred stocks from Europe and Asia. The extreme beauty of the papers is best appreciated when viewing the originals where the delicate translucence of some of the papers can truly be seen, some of which are a mere 4gsm.  The largest works astound viewers for their rigidity, while all made from paper.  Sculptures range from miniature to free-standing pieces over 6 by 3.8 metres. Ray's styles can be abstract to figurative ultra-realism though he calls his signature style “Impressionist Sculptured Paper” for its use of torn, raw pieces arranged to form the subject matter.  While likeness is important, the focus is to capture emotion, life and expression over realism yet always revealing the character of the papers from which the subjects are sculptured. Nature is his favourite subject matter. Most works will take between 3-6 weeks to complete, are extremely archival and guaranteed to last many generations.  

https://papersculptureartist.com/