Bianca Levan: Internal Landscapes
Bianca Levan is a Vietnamese-American papercut artist based in San Francisco, California. She is fascinated with the process by which contemplation, emotion, and choice weave a path in time. As a self-taught artist, Bianca follows curiosity and is driven by a desire for expression. Her hand-cut work embraces imperfections left by the knife blade and the inherent constraints of black paper and negative spaces.
How did your creative journey begin?
My creative journey began and continues to be a drive for self expression. As a kid, I didn’t have aspirations to be an artist. In fact, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. But I always had a deep desire to share, show, expose what I was feeling and experiencing. At a young age, I tried various outlets like writing poetry and short stories, as well as playing piano and guitar, but nothing felt quite right. When I was 26, my boyfriend at the time took me to an open studios weekend in San Francisco. Visiting that building was like nothing I had seen or felt before. I just didn’t know places like that existed. There were floors of artist studios – each one so unique and different – there was paint on the floors, tall ceilings with wooden cross beams – it was intoxicating. I knew I had to be there. It was as if I had been jolted awake from a haze. My job at that time had me spending 40 hours a week in a windowless cubicle and just needed more. So, without a defined art practice or even a clear medium, I started renting an art studio for $150 a month. It was a tiny, two-walled cubicle, but it was a space I had chosen for myself and I became dedicated to exploration. About 6 months after that, I started papercutting. And this was all about 13 years ago.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
For me, inspiration comes from the meeting of an internal question or feeling or tension with an external observation or experience. My work originates from me trying to make sense of the world by thinking through a question or series of questions. In a way, trying to understand the shape of my internal landscape. These landscapes are then transferred and translated into imagined landscapes in my papercut work. I find inspiration in walking and in nature and taking in other people’s ideas through interviews, music, poetry, and conversation. I’m also inspired by the way light hits a building or a cloud moved across the sky. With respect to art, I find constant beauty and awe in Japanese woodblocks, especially Hiroshige, and the woodcuts from Lynd Ward.
How has your work evolved over the last few years?
I used to work on one piece at a time from start to finish and I would be completely absorbed in working on just the one piece. I was incapable of dividing my attention or focusing on multiple pieces. The problem with that process was that often I would get stuck, trying to figure out where to take the piece next and I would just be completely halted. Sometimes for days without any progress. Over the last few years this has shifted, partly out of necessity and partly out of desire to not feel so stuck in my process. When there’s a part of a piece that isn’t working, I’m now able to put a piece aside and move to a different one. This has proven to be helpful beyond just the stuckness. The works needed room to breathe and time to rest and I wasn’t giving that to them in the past. Thus, my more recent works get space. I think this has actually translated into better compositions. Not overcrowding with detail, the pieces are now more balanced. I’m able to come back with a fresher view and, often, the idea of what needs to happen will be quite obvious. I’m able to more easily leave room for the unknown in my work - instead of having everything planned. I’m no longer afraid of leaving parts of the work as solid, black paper. It’s still a challenge, but I’m more willing to leave spaces for unplanned elements to develop and reveal themselves in the process.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
Sometimes I wish there was a typical day! Unfortunately, my days are incredibly varied so I don’t have specific hours per se or have a typical day in the studio. However, I do have small rituals that I perform everytime I’m in the studio. I do believe that routine is important — though only while I’m at the studio. I’m terrible at it in my day-to-day life. I think the rituals, like switching to my studio shoes, making a cup of coffee or tea, lighting incense, all help ease my body into memory and demarcate that “it’s time to be here, now.” A signal for presence. It helps me settle as much of the day I’m quite busy. I will often review the works I have in progress, and start working on the one that catches my attention most strongly. Some of what I work on is also determined by how focused I feel or how much time I have. For instance, drawing and solving challenges of any particular piece requires more active focus and thinking. Papercutting itself is more physical but requires a deeper type of presence and immersion in thought. I hope that my art practice continues to grow and change for as long as I’m inspired to create work. I’m entering my 13th year of papercutting. At this point, I think it’ll always be a part of my practice, but at a 2021 art residency, I started exploring charcoal as a complement to papercutting. I’ve fallen in love with it! In a lot of ways, it is the antithesis of the precision of papercutting. Charcoal is instantaneous, immediate, and sensual in ways that papercuting is inherently not. It has served as a way to free up creativity. It’s still very new but I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops in the next 5 or 6 years.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
There are many experiences that have impacted my work as an artist. One that stands out to me currently is from a 4-week residency in 2021, I was confronted with a few different factors that made me uncomfortable and have ultimately changed me and my practice. One of these is my relationship to silence. The residency was at a fairly rural location, and it was so incredibly quiet, especially at night. At first, I felt a compulsion to listen to music, podcasts, anything to fill the space. But gradually, I stopped listening to anything altogether. I would spend the whole day in silence listening to the leaves rustling, the bees buzzing outside, and became completely content with that. In fact, listening to anything became almost grating and too distracting. Ever since then, I find myself craving complete silence at times and I try to allow myself to do so. Creating in this type of silence has definitely influenced my work, though I’m not sure I can yet articulate exactly how. All I know is that it has allowed for greater peace and presence that flows into my work as I’m developing it.
How has social media impacted your work?
There’s a lot about social media that I struggle with. But there are significant positives to it also. For one, it has led me to art and artists and galleries and organizations that I would not have been aware of otherwise. While social media can easily impact one's work, tastes, and style, I’m not exactly sure how or if it’s done that to my work. But I do know that it has allowed me to greatly widen my community of artists and especially papercut artists. What comes to mind is my friend, Domitilla Bondi. Domitilla lives in Milan and I remember coming across her paper carving and porcelain work and being completely enamored with it. In addition to our friendship and correspondence, we found time to co-work together over Zoom - her with intricate paper carvings and me with my papercutting – and eventually we even ended up trading the very pieces we worked on that day. It’s a sweet memory. In more recent years, I’ve become interested in curating shows. Papercutting is a more niche art form, and I love the idea of exposing viewers to all the different facets and fascinating histories of the medium. I’m currently curating a show that’s bringing together artists from all over the world, showcasing many different traditional and contemporary form of papercutting — and this show could not exist without the connection enabled by social media.
What drew you to your chosen medium?
I found papercutting at a time when I was actively experimenting and looking for a medium that felt like my own. But, I discovered papercutting a bit by accident. I was strolling through a bookstore one day and just happened upon a book that featured a collection of papercut artists and their works. A few days later, armed with a paper bag and a boxcutter I made my first attempt. It was an immediate attraction, the first time that something I made truly looked like what I had pictured in my head. It felt right and I knew that so much more was there. I just had to go deeper, and try more. Over time, I came to greatly appreciate the process of extraction. The physical work of removing paper from paper, creating space and shape. The physical aspect became deeply connected to how I work — how things I’m thinking or feeling are distilled and transferred into the paper.
IG: @biancalevan
Website: biancalevan.com