Joey Bates, Dals Långed Sweden-based artist, creates beautiful, multi-layered works with a cut paper relief technique. Originally focusing his craft more on portraits, for the past several years Bates has been known to create detailed botanical pieces. By layering and meticulously placing copious pieces and layers of hand-cut paper, his dense clusters of paper flowers built blooming floral bouquets that play with depth and perception.
Joey Bates’ paper installations play with contrast and details in a way that can only be described as explosive harmony
Often monochrome, or with a singular blast of color, the artist manages to create tension and tangible energy through contrasting applications. While paper as a medium can be comprised of being fragile, or florals as feminine, the paper installations do not feel delicate or soft, but dynamic and palpable. Something that must be tedious and repetitive to create, seems to accumulate explosive energy in an unpredictable way.
While paper as a medium can be comprised of being fragile, or florals as feminine, the paper installations do not feel delicate or soft, but dynamic and palpable.
“Energy dispersal and change are the impetus for Bates’ recent works. Each piece references a volcanic explosion or amalgamation of explosions to recall disruption, destruction, and eventual renewal. The flowers lend a patina of beauty and ease to a process that is jarring, disorienting, and happening constantly — whether or not we are paying attention” – Bates writes of his own work.
Pursuing a career in the arts since graduating from Kendall College of Art and Design, Bates has been showing in galleries and accepting commissions from private citizens around the world. His work is in private collections in the US, England, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, and Japan, and has garnered attention in the global cut-paper art scene. Make sure to follow the artist on Instagram for more inspiration, and keep an eye out for future exhibitions.
Images © Joey Bates