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Papa Paper Mache£20.00
“Primarily a maker of 3D objects and relief images using paper pulp. I also like to repurpose stuff, thrown away or intentionally sourced.”
I was born in Cardiff in 1966 and lived there for the first twenty years of my life. I moved to London and trained as a draughtsman/paste up artist in various advertising studios in the West End. As the recession hit in the early 1990’s I found myself out of work again and again. In1991 almost on a pure whim, having only visited the city for a few hours the year before, I headed for Exeter, Devon and this is where I took up papier mâché. Papier mache for two reasons; because newspaper was freely available and I had a reason to make an object, which is another story.
Since that time I have investigated and demonstrated the extraordinary versatility of papier-mâché (chewed paper) by a wide range of applications including items of furniture, decorative wall-pieces, picture frames, masks, helmets and architectural features. My applications have even extended to a modernist design flat-packed burial casket Earthsleeper and a dome-shaped house for cats and small dogs to sleep in. Both of these have been included in the ecological international publication, The Eco Design Hand book by Alastair Fuad-Luke, PetPod in More Paperwork by Nancy Williams, the author Sue Townsend wrote about Earthsleeper (burial casket) in The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman, and the Icelandic Museum of Design and Applied Art requested Earthsleeper for a design exhibition in 2008.
My work celebrates the tactile nature of the material, with further interest generated by the shaping of designs, which are modelled in high and low relief. Much of my work has been one-off pieces; others are intended for repeat production.
I now live in the foot hills of the Black Mountains, Wales and after a few years on paper pulp making pause, It's now time to press play again.
© 2025 Andrew Vaccari Pulpture. All rights reserved.
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