Craft Behind the Beautiful Paper Forms of Peter Gentenaar

Peter Gentenaar is a papermaker from the Netherlands. I am mesmerized by his winged like paper forms seem to soar into space. Interestingly enough he also creates the same sort of works in metal which seems a paradox to me. Below are some of his images and thoughts about his work, in his own words:

Peter with his Holland beater.

"My inspiration is a bud, which, in spring, unfolds into a leaf... My interest in paper started while working as a printmaker, when my engravings had such deep relief, that commercial paper could not fill it.

Red plume in Saint Riquier Abbey France, 130 x 140 cm 2009

Abbey of St.Riquier, Somme, France

Head Office, Joop van den Ende
Museumplein Amsterdam

I decided to make my own paper and was helped by Jo Persoon at the Royal Dutch Paper Factory, KNP. He taught me about beaters for making paper pulp and vacuum systems to suck water out of pulp, to make paper. The laboratory beater I used was unable to process long fibers, so I built a beater of my own design.

A paper sheet is thin and strong and, reinforced with very thin ribs of bamboo, can be compared to a leaf. By beating pulp a long time, an extraordinary play of forces occurs during the drying process of my paper sculpture. The paper shrinks considerably, up to 40%, and the force of this puts the non-shrinking bamboo framework under stress, just as a leaf when it drys.

My sculptures start as totally 2-dimensional, colored sheets of pulp laying on my vacuumtable. The forms in my work are caused by pulp drying and shrinking in unison. The simplicity of the material, which is the carrier, the color, the texture and the form, in one, makes working with it wonderful and direct."

There is, for me, a real spiritual quality to Peter's work. I am inspired by these three dimensional forms....

You can see more of work and learn more about him at his website. Please click on his name> Peter Gentenaar