About the Artist

Tim Budden is an artist whose silk and paper cuttings go hand in hand with the influence of the life he has chosen to live in Taiwan. Both his art and his personal credo are tangible examples of an attempt to comprehend, live and work within the culture an ever evolving Taiwanese Chinese society. Combining this with the Western cultural influences within which he was raised and moulded by, has taken Tim many years to realize. It is the friction between these two cultural backgrounds and the menagerie of images in his head, which gives rise to his silk paper cuttings.

Silk and Paper Cutting

A native of the U.K., Tim arrived in Taiwan with little interest in traditional, formal Chinese art. At first he had no cultural references in this Asian culture that could sustain his art work and for a while he stopped producing art altogether. Then he discovered the art of Chinese Paper Cutting. This predominantly female 'folk art' fascinated Tim, its graphic qualities, hard edges, inventiveness and the stories told very quickly began to influence his work especially since his background was in sculpture and designing sequential graphics (a.k.a. comics). He now felt he was in a position to create art in this new environment and began carving and sculpting the silk paper with a sharp scalpel.

Tim's silk and paper cuttings are made in a number of ways - The basic cut outs are a single image whereas the symmetrical cuts are designs that are created by folding the silk paper before cutting into it. When unfolded, this forms an even numbered symmetrical series of 2, 4 or 8.

In the current work a paper backed silk is used. This traditional silk is usually found in the mounting of Chinese scroll paintings. It is a durable material that helps protect paintings from the rigors of constant rolling and unrolling. The silk's fine quality and rich colours are woven into a repetitive phoenix pattern that gives the work a beautiful iridescent sheen. The traditional nature of this silk limits the palette of colours to - black, white, green, red, blue and gold. When working with the silk Tim cuts into it using a scalpel in much the same way as he would have used a nib and ink on paper while drawing cartoon strips.