Under the touch of Daphne Lee, calming gradients and multilayered petals blossom from sheets of ordinary paper. Born in Singapore and now based in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Lee—who co-founded the papercraft studio JUDiTH+ROLFE with her husband in 2016—creates handmade floral sculptures that examine the relationship between man and nature, particularly on how flowers can have a profound effect on our everyday lives.
渐次晕开的色彩，层叠舒展的花瓣，是 Daphne Lee（Judith）用通过最贴近自然的手工制作，把植物与人的关系、连同生命赋予人的意义，悉数植入到衍纸作品中去，塑造出简单却层次丰富的立体植物形态。
Lee stumbled upon paper art by chance. In 2016, she wanted to find a customized gift for a friend but searched high and low to no avail. That’s when she decided to take matters into her own hands and make her own out of paper. Having worked as an architect for nearly a decade, making three-dimensional paper art wasn’t a far leap. Her first creation was a typographic piece. Joining together strips of paper, she assembled a paper sculpture of her friend’s name. She found it surprisingly soothing to work with paper, discovering a zen-like sense of peace in their repetitive folds. She was hooked.
Lee has long adored flowers and the natural world, so it’s not surprising that it’s become a central theme in her art. Magnolias, daisies, roses, and lilies are among some of her favorites, and their colors and shapes are frequently referenced in her designs. “The beauty of a blossoming flower inspires me endlessly,” she says. “So in my color palettes, I try to recreate their original vibrance. The power of colors cannot be underestimated—they can affect our mood and even change the energy of a room.”
2016年，Daphne Lee 本想寻找一种个性化定制名字的礼物送人，但苦寻未果，反而让她下定决心自己动手了起来。那是 Daphne Lee 首次创作纸艺作品。曾作为一名建筑设计师的她，本就有一双乐于发现美的眼睛，她利用手边既有的材料，制成预先裁剪好的纸条，然后就开始卷纸卷，并将它们排列成字母名字。没想到接下来她却发现自己“爱上了这个重复的、充满禅意的过程”，此后几乎每天都在与纸打交道。
在 Daphne Lee 印象中，能吸引到她的总是那些极具美感和生命力的东西。木兰、雏菊、玫瑰、百合……她擅长收集和“解构”自然界里的种种微妙设计所在。“似锦的繁花是我的灵感来源，我在调色板中通常会尝试反映自然界中的实际颜色。”她说道，花瓣的颜色丰富而有渐变感，她会仔细筛选备用的纸张颜色，因为纵深度的关系，作品会随着观者的视角、光线的变化而不断变化，Daphne Lee 对此很是痴迷：“色彩的力量不容小觑，它可以影响我们的情绪，改变一个房间的能量。”
When working, inspiration often comes to Lee without much effort. The faint glimmer of an idea is more than enough for her to make a preliminary sketch. A variety of techniques goes into her paper assemblages, but quilling—a traditional paper-art method involving standing rolled sheets of paper upright—remains the most used. This technique makes a variety of shapes possible. “In traditional quilling, rolled paper is made into various decorative shapes,” she explains. “With my method, instead of using the shapes associated with traditional quilling, I treat each strip of paper as its own line. The paper still stands on its edge, but its cut and glued down individually to create the artwork. It’s in a way, kind of like sketching with paper.”
Daphne Lee 说，她从不会主动寻找灵感，这个过程是反过来的：一霎灵光会找上她，然后就开始画草图制作。一般来说，她会使用不同的技术来创作立体的纸质作品，但更擅长使用立边纸条，这种技术也可以广泛地被称为“衍纸艺术”。“在我的工作方法中，没有使用典型的装饰形状，而是将每跟纸条都作为自己的线条来使用。纸条保持在它垂直的立面，但被我单独切割和粘合下来以构建作品。”Daphne 这样解释道整个过程，相比其他手工创作，她坦言自己就是喜欢衍纸作品的模样，“有点像用纸画素描。”
Since starting JUDiTH+ROLFE, Lee has invested even more time studying up on plants and nature. Both she and her husband believe that there’s a universality to the love of plants, and a person’s preference for flowers can reveal plenty about them as an individual. To them, flowers also hold a tremendous influence on a person’s well-being. With these viewpoints in mind, the studio’s past work has largely been focused on floral-themed art. More than eye candy, Lee’s paper flowers carry the power and beauty of their real-life counterparts but are imparted with an expressive elegance that leaves a lasting impression.
自从创办 JUDiTH+ROLFE 后，Daphne Lee 投入了更多时间在植物和自然身上。她和丈夫都认为，人们对植物的喜爱是是普遍共识，一个人对花的喜好可以揭示出很多个人特点。在他们的理解中，大自然应是和人类的身心健康息息相关。这也许正是他们简历纸艺工作室的初衷：纸张铺陈的植物也是有力量的，它们不仅仅会带给人视觉上的享受，更重要的是寻得内心深处对美的渴望与表达，并将植物的能量投射到人们的心境中去。
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Contributor: Chen Yuan
