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A former Hautlieu student will this month be sharing the stories of her home, her craft and her upbringing through three unique displays created by putting scalpel to paper.
Local artist Layla May Arthur will be displaying ‘A Paper Artist in Progress’ at ArtHouse Jersey's Capital House from Thursday 23 May.
Layla created the display in collaboration with Jersey-born composer Christina Orchard.
The exhibition aims to create an immersive sonic and aesthetic experience that leaves audiences fascinated with paper crafting techniques by merging paper artistry with music.
‘A Paper Artist in Progress’ features three large-scale paper-cutting installations handcrafted by Layla over the years using only glue and layers of paper.
Pictured: Layla went to school at Hautlieu and studied fine art at the Netherlands at Minerva Art Academy.
She cuts elaborate patterns into the paper, sculpts, and layers the paper to create intricate worlds and plays with lighting to create shadows which interact with the surrounding environment.
The three parts of the exhibition each explore different themes.
‘Unfolded’ (2024) explores the possibilities of paper as an artisan refining her craft. It was inspired by the intricate stonework of historic Italian ceilings and the ways that artisans work with different materials using similar techniques.
Through layering paper to achieve different thicknesses and tones, Layla aims to challenge perceptions about the thin sheet material and evoke comparisons to fabric and porcelain.
‘The Storyteller, The Listener, and Our Story’ (2021) invites viewers to reimagine childhood stories through paper images. The installation draws inspiration from the stories Layla’s parents told her as a child.
These narratives, she said, have become fragmented over time and were distorted childhood fantasies. This creates a non-linear and incomplete storyline that reflects the evolution of memories over time.
‘Jersey: My Childhood Home’ (2019) was Layla’s debut installation created when she was only 19 that kickstarted her career and involved 500 hours of painstaking work.
It aims to take the viewer on a journey through all twelve parishes in Jersey and the artist's personal memories of these growing up in these locations and encourages viewers to contemplate their own unique experiences of island life.
The connection Layla feels between the land and sea is emphasised by repeated patterns of water, sky, grass and sand.
Pictured: Layla designed the 'Discoveries With Darwin' giant tortoise as part of last year's 'Tortoise Takeover' that aimed to raise funds to build a new amphibian and reptile house at Jersey Zoo.
It was through a workshop with visiting artists Karen Bit Vejle and Xiaoguang Qiao brought over by ArtHouse Jersey as part of their ‘Paper Dialogues’ project that Layla discovered her gift for paper cutting.
The touring exhibition made its British debut at the Town Hall in St Helier in October 2016 and during their time in the island, the two renowned artists ran a series of master-classes to train local artists in 'psaligraphy', or paper cutting.
Layla, who was studying art at Hautlieu at the time, attended one of the workshops and became fascinated with psaligraphy and how it can transform a simple piece of paper into artwork.
She then went on to study fine art in the Netherlands at Minerva Art Academy, where she experimented further with paper herself and has rarely used another material since.
To date Layla’s papercutting art has been exhibited in Croatia, Belgium, the Netherlands, the USA, Switzerland, Germany, and many more.
CLICK TO ENLARGE: 'Jersey, My Childhood Home'.
Director of ArtHouse Jersey, Tom Dingle, said: “Layla’s work has won competitions and been shown in major galleries in Europe and the United States so it is exciting to be bringing it home for our local audience.
"Accompanied by a specially commissioned soundtrack by local composer Christina Orchard, I would encourage everyone to come and take in these beautiful works.”
The exhibition will run from Thursday 23 May to Sun 30 June from 10:30 to 18:00 at Capital House. For more information click HERE.
An interview with Layla appeared in the September 2023 of Connect Magazine, which you can read in full below...
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