Poppy Chancellor uses the traditional craft of papercutting and turns it on its head. Based in London, Chancellor specializes in papercutting workshops for brands, events, and festivals. She has also collaborated with giants like Nike, Adidas, and Vogue.
Originally studying illustration at Kingston University, she went on to study at the Royal Drawing School where she started making customized paper artworks for friends and family. But illustrating didn’t always come easy for Chancellor.
“I was in the final year of my Illustration degree and I got a bad final mark,” she recalled in an interview with the Bailey Nelson blog. “I had one chance to redeem myself through an additional mark for the final exhibition, and I knew I had to take a totally different approach. I’d been doing a lot of ink drawing and charcoal, so I decided to do something 3-dimensional instead. I made a city out of shoeboxes with black cut-out silhouettes of people in the windows. You could turn the lights in the ‘rooms’ on and off. I wanted to use a traditional craft, but with a contemporary subject matter. The art of papercutting is ancient!”
She has since been hard at work, first creating small commissions such as wedding gifts, and then moving on to more prestigious projects. “It’s nice to have the freedom to experiment, share my work based on my own ideas,” she admits. “You don’t need to compromise who you are because people are, luckily, interested in your work.”
Check out some of her unique pieces.
