Michael Velliquette has spent over twenty years crafting elaborate paper sculptures entirely by hand. Each individual work is meticulously done with scissors, an Exacto knife, bone folders, or leather punches. On average, Velliquette dedicates hundreds of hours to cutting, arranging, gluing, and assembling each paper sculpture. He employs imagery that speaks to universal human experiences – stars, hands, hearts, eyes, teardrops, flowers, human profiles, and other anthropomorphic features. The completed works stand as much as art objects as they are a testament to the act of making, concentrating, and being.
Velliquette has said that paper is “at once humble and transformative.” Transitory, impermanent, and easy to use, paper is familiar to every single viewer. What is unfamiliar is how Velliquette treats paper, transforming this humble medium into intricate, detailed wonderlands of form, shape, and layering.
For this exhibition, alongside his paper works, Velliquette will exhibit a recent series powder coated aluminum sculptures that translate the motifs from his paper works into three dimensions. These metal sculptures strip away ornamentation to emphasize his iconic symbols, while the mirror-like surfaces interact playfully with light and the surrounding space.
Michael Velliquette (American, b. 1971) is an artist internationally acclaimed for his meticulously crafted paper sculptures. A leading voice in the current renaissance of paper-based arts, Velliquette’s work has been included in exhibitions such as the Shanghai International Paper Art Biennial at the Shanghai Fengxian Museum; Global Paper at the Stadtmuseum in Deggendorf, DE; The Possibilites of Paper at the Torggler Fine Arts Center in Newport News, VA; Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual at the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in St. Louis, MO; Paper Fascination at the Gustav Lübke Museum in Hamm, DE; and the Cheonju Craft Biennale in South Korea. His work is in the permanent collections of the Chazen Museum of Art; the Racine Art Museum; The Progressive Corporation; The John Michael Kohler Art Center; and The Microsoft Collection. He has participated in residencies and cultural exchange programs including the John Michael Kohler Art/Industry program; the Vermont Studio Center; EUARCA, Kassel, DE; Kloster Dornach, Basel, CH; and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. His work has been featured in Colossal and The New York Times. In 2021 Velliquette appeared as a judge on the Discovery Channel competition series “Meet Your Makers Showdown”. Velliquette has a BFA from the Florida State University (’93) and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (’00). He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Additionally, he’s conducted courses on the Paper Arts at the Haystack Mountain School of Craft, the Pocosin School of Fine Craft, and the Penland School of Craft.
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