Rhoda K Baker

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Paper

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Paperscapes

Rhoda's father gave her a book on her 12th birthday called ‘Creating with Paper’.  It explores every aspect of paper art, and it is still today an invaluable source of inspiration for her.

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She uses paper to create dynamic and complex three dimensional forms; low relief contour maps of pattern and structure, exploring ideas about rhythm, sequence, repetition, light and space. Her work is geometric, and systematic, but can also be spontaneous and intuitive.                                 

 

Rhoda studied textiles at the Royal College of Art in London. Her particular focus was on designing the complex structures of knitted and woven fabrics.  Combining this textile background with a passion for manipulating paper informs her current work, which she describes as 'Paperscapes'.

 

Paper is tremendously versatile with amazing qualities and remarkable strength and flexibility.  Rhoda mostly uses thick watercolour papers for the 'Paperscapes,' hand cut with a scapel and ruler. She finds it thrilling to make such evocative and remarkable structures out of the most modest of materials.

 

The 'Paperscapes' are best illuminated from a light source at an oblique angle to the surface, providing valuable information on the surface topography.