KIRSTEN HASSENFELD

Kirsten Hassenfeld is an amazing designer who works with paper.

"Kirsten Hassenfeld creates extravagantly decorated, over-sized translucent gem and crystalline sculptures painstakingly crafted predominantly from paper. Borrowing forms and techniques from jewelry and other luxury goods, she creates opulent hybrids of traditional decorative art and otherworldly excess... Using the language of the intimate domestic object (the chandelier, the curio) and the monumental public object (the obelisk, the reflecting pool,) Kirsten playfully evokes traditional markers of power and symbols of plenty, mixing their opulence with the fragility of the hand hewn.
“My work has evolved into a three-dimensional daydream in which my ambivalence toward material wealth and privilege is expressed. Precious objects speak about the cultures that produce and consume them; I revamp these objects with decidedly un-precious materials and varying scales, making fantasy tangible in a manner that calls into question what is considered precious. I conjure up for the viewer concoctions of wishes in an ephemeral form, promoting a state of wistful half-fulfillment.
My sculptures, as they reference specific markers of status, are themselves part of a larger economy of privilege. Contemporary art is, in the most extreme way, a luxury. My artwork self-consciously acknowledges its own extravagance and impracticality." Kirsten Hassenfeld, 2004 - from the bellwether gallery site.

Please check out her other works, they are so beautiful and so expressive. I love her subject matter, especially in today's climate where my 11 year old niece knows who Louis Vuitton is and why she thinks she needs to have one of their purses.