Bianca Levan ’06 curates and displays her paper-cutting art at Connecting Cuts, an exhibit featuring traditional, cross-cultural, and modern papercut styles and techniques on display from Nov. 7 to Dec. 14 at the Olive Hyde Gallery in Fremont, California.
Levan currently splits her time between creating art and working as a medical writer. She originally planned to become a doctor, majoring in biology and English at UC Davis. During her undergraduate years, Levan explored downtown art galleries, was a DJ at KDVS, met her future husband and worked at Watermelon Music, a music store. In her third year, she spent a summer abroad in London and visited the Tate Modern museum, an influential experience in her exposure to art. “It felt like the world had sort of opened up in a very literal way,” Levan said.
After graduation, Levan got a job working as a medical writer at Genentech. She was working 40-hour weeks in a cubicle and said she craved an outlet for self-expression. “I just needed more, you know, and I've always had a desire for creativity and expressing myself,” she said.
In 2011, she visited San Francisco’s Open Studios, where artists can sign up and display their studio work. “There were hundreds of artists in a building, and I thought, ‘I just have to be here,’” she said. Levan started renting a small art studio, and for the past 12 years, she has been creating paper-cut art alongside medical writing. Paper-cut art utilizes paper and a knife or scissors to make an artistic design.
Levan was inspired to take up the art style after seeing it in a book and the accessibility of the technique. “It doesn't matter who you are or what you're doing. If you want to make something, you can do it and all you need is a piece of paper,” she said.
Levan’s process starts with an abstract idea, usually inspired by different decision points or ideas she’s questioning in her life, and she tries to portray the feelings that this evokes into a visual image on the page. She begins with a sketch, laying out the main structures and composition of the piece, showing the negative space that she will cut away. Levan said she is currently inspired by the possibility of motherhood and how the experience would shift and impact her life. “I think, what is the emotion that this question brings up in me? And then through the piece, trying to either pick elements or a metaphor of what that feels like,” she said. For her depiction of one’s journey, she uses a road that winds through trees to a mountain. ”In a very metaphorical way, like the road in life, where is it going? How is it interacting with things around it?” she said.
Although Levan has shown her work at multiple group exhibits and solo art shows, her lack of formal artistic experience and ability to do art full-time have presented obstacles. “I found myself minimizing the things that I've accomplished because I don't have a formal art background,” she said. “That's been the bigger challenge than just the making.” Despite this difficulty, Levan has taken strides with her art, joining the Guild of American Papercutters, attending numerous art residencies and exploring curation.
In Levan’s current exhibit, Connecting Cuts, she is co-curating a collection of paper-cut pieces representing a wide range of traditional art styles, from Jianzhi (剪紙), originating in China, to Wycinanki (Витина́нки/Выцінанкі), a Polish folk style. This show brings together 27 artists with 60 works of hand-cut paper, including a large-scale papel picado installation, 3D works and more.
She aims to showcase paper cutting beyond its commercial uses and the history of the technique, which dates to the 4th century. “I feel like I'm the best version of myself when I'm in service of other things. Curation is an aspect of that,” she said.
Moving forward, Levan said she hopes to do larger-scale installations, work on set design for a theater and continue her writing projects. She also wants to experiment with different media, like charcoal, and combine it with paper cutting. “I feel like I'm not necessarily tied to one thing. I think part of the beauty of being an artist is the ability to be curious and explore and move toward what interests you. I’m just learning as I go,” Levan said.