Charlotte McGowan-Griffin

2004 Kamiyama Artist in Residence Participant
In Kamiyama from September 24 to November 24 2004

Born in London, England. She attended the Fine Art degree course at Goldsmith's College, London in 1997. Her recent work has taken the form of delicately crafted paper cutouts of varying scale, sometimes also exploiting their projected image. She recurrently employs the motif of the supernatural.
She created a piece made of paper cutouts, inspired by numerous screen paintings for puppet shows remaining in Kamiyama as well as the local folktales. She also tried some new techniques; lighting the cutouts from behind and projecting their shadows onto the paper screens and using a video projector to incorporate moving images into her work. (→Charlotte McGowan-Griffin website)

神領小学校にて課外授業 After-hours class with Jinryo Elementary School students

-View photos of Charlotte in action
-View Charlotte's works

Charlotte McGowan-Griffin “You can’t take it with you” (2003)

The silhouettes projected on the paper screens show the effects of light and shade, through which it almost seems as if various sounds can be heard: chirping crickets, sweet tinkling of a wind-bell, carps making a splash on the pond, and the wind piping through the forest. A foreign landscape we have actually seen and felt spins itself into being like a haiku poem. The interplay between her miraculous cutting technique and the lighting brings back layers of folktales, suggestive of a rich harvest. A stage of light and darkness, 'Kyoshu' gives its viewers a reverie that traverses national borders, like an eternal theater carved out of a common space. (Musashino Art University professor Aomi Okabe)