Papillons de Papier
Catherine Swan
Hand cut from vintage magazines, Catherine Swan’s paper butterflies appear to be specimens from a nostalgic technicolour world perpetually fluttering between the 50s and 60s.
Featuring powdery lilacs, candy pinks, baby blues and the same shade of orange you’d normally find in soft centre chocolates, these Papillons de Papier are meticulously cut from the articles and advertising found in dusty old Esquires and Playboys.
Catherine says, “I have always loved the old Kodachrome colours and paper quality that came about through a method of printing that just doesn’t exist anymore. Let someone flip through a copy of a magazine from over 50 years ago and you’ll find that they become very respectful and reverent because these publications are like a time capsule.
There’s something trapped and beautiful about the text and the illustrations and advertising that express with such gravity the details of products and events, which at the time were so important, but now seem so irrelevant. The butterfly metaphor, apart from being visually pleasing to me, seemed the perfect way to express this heartbreaking beauty”
Featuring powdery lilacs, candy pinks, baby blues and the same shade of orange you’d normally find in soft centre chocolates, these Papillons de Papier are meticulously cut from the articles and advertising found in dusty old Esquires and Playboys.
Catherine says, “I have always loved the old Kodachrome colours and paper quality that came about through a method of printing that just doesn’t exist anymore. Let someone flip through a copy of a magazine from over 50 years ago and you’ll find that they become very respectful and reverent because these publications are like a time capsule.
There’s something trapped and beautiful about the text and the illustrations and advertising that express with such gravity the details of products and events, which at the time were so important, but now seem so irrelevant. The butterfly metaphor, apart from being visually pleasing to me, seemed the perfect way to express this heartbreaking beauty”
Catherine completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade in Japan, the US and Australia. She studied photography in Paris in 1993 at http://www.speos.fr. She has worked in a variety of mediums and has exhibited her paper butterfly collections in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra – Tokyo and Wellington New Zealand. Her works are in collections both Nationally and Internationally.