14 Best Kirie Japanese Paper-Cutting Artists You Should Know

by Jes Kalled & Teni Wada | CRAFT

Paper cutting may bring back fond memories of grade school crafts like snowflakes, doilies, and doll chains. But kirie, the art of Japanese paper cutting, is a far cry from such cutsey designs. Kirie artists transform a single sheet of paper into intricate designs inspired by fantasy and nature.

Read on to discover the incredible works of 14 of the best Japanese kirie artists. But first, a little historical background…

What is Kirie?

The word kirie comes from the two kanji 切 kiri, meaning cut, and 絵 e, meaning picture. The art of making pictures by cutting paper took root in Japan in the 7th century as an import from the Chinese mainland. The abundance of sturdy washi paper (find out All You Need To Know About Washi Paper) allowed Japanese artists to transform the artform into a different medium, finally becoming a performance art by the 17th century.

Kamikiri (simply meaning paper cutting), as it was known during the Edo Period, was enacted in front of a live audience against a backdrop of music. Masters took requests and expertly transformed sheets of papers into cutouts upon the request of audience members.

Modern day kirie, while not as flashy as its kamikiri predecessor, is equally entertaining. No matter small or grand the completed project, the process and tools of kirie remain essentially the same: a bladed object deftly cutting away at a single sheet of paper in a process that can take mere minutes or as much as many months to complete.

These 14 Japanese paper artists have revolutionized the kirie art with their contemporary approach to Japanese tradition, with works that effortlessly showcase the versatility of Japanese paper cutting.

1. Ayumi Shibata

Ayumi Shibata was born in Yokohama, Japan, and has since exhibited her work around the world. “Kami is the Japanese word meaning ‘god’, ‘divinity’, or ‘spirit’; but it also means ‘paper.’” Wherever she goes, she seems to carry with her some embodiments of Japanese culture and thinking. She is “inspired by nature,” and the kami (or gods) that reside within everything: paper, nature, humans. Shibata uses white paper because this is considered a “sacred material” in the religion of Shinto. The detail of her work is expansive. She cuts paper to reveal the windows of castles, stars in the night sky, or the lava of a molting volcano. With her work, there are layers–visual dimensions to the worlds she envisions. Some are large enough to step into, engulf a person into a different story, always filled with white.

2. Nahoko Kojima

© Nahoko Kojima, Shiro Paper Cut Sculpture, 2018

A kirie master with global recognition, Nahoko Kojima’s reinterpretation of traditionally flat mounted paper cut art as large-scale, sculpture-like paper cut creations is based on her childhood memories of lying in a meadow, observing the ever-changing of shadows cast by flowers swaying in the wind. These grand works, often suspended mid-air, prompt the audience to explore the surrounding space and observe how light and angles change one’s perception.

A 2015 collaboration with Bulgari for the brand’s Bridal Art Luxury bridal campaign further bridged the relationship between nature and art. Kojima’s use of doves mid-flights and hearts interwoven into feathers of doves created a timeless, romantic showcased in 90 Bulgari stores across Asia. In this video, she discusses the inspirations behind the campaign.

Her most ambitious project to date is Shiro, a life-sized recreation of a blue whale made from only 2 sheets of washi paper. Cut and installed by Kojima herself, Shiro took nearly one year to complete before it was unveiled in Bangkok in 2018.

3. Katsumi Hayakawa

Katsumi Hayakawa participates in worldmaking; paper cut-outs of architectural landscapes. Buildings, cities, sculptures of a mini-world, all hand-cut and glued together. “It’s hard to explain [what I do] in words,” says the artist. “I always lose what I’m doing.”

Interestingly, Hayakawa’s world-building is something to get lost in. The scale and visual repetition of the city in its final form gives the viewer insight into what is a lengthy, winding process for its maker. It feels as if one could walk the streets of the paper city and get swallowed by its density and realness.

4. Masayo Fukuda

Kirie reached a new height of global recognition in December 2018 when Masayo Fukuda’s incredibly detailed rendering of an octopus went viral after she unveiled on her official Twitter account. Crafted from a single sheet of A2 paper, Umidako appears at first glance to be a color drawing, but once lifted away from the black backdrop, the sheer amount of intricate detailing on this octopus art is simply astounding.

Living creatures feature prominently in her extensive gallery, which also includes portraits, all elaborately detailed with fine lines. Each work begins as a finely detailed sketch; afterwards, Fukuda uses a precision utility knife to etch away, revealing the final form. A kirie artist with 25 years of experience, Fukuda considers Umidako her greatest work of 2018, which undoubtedly means that we can expect more jaw-dropping works in the years to come!

5. Yuken Teruya

Artist Yuken Teruya cuts paper from an original source, creating a garden of paper plants that seem to grow from everyday objects like newspapers or high end shopping bags. It’s an overgrown feeling, and an intimate one. In his collective newspaper exhibition titled Minding My Own Business, one of the eleven newspapers pictures a rape victim-survivor. The paper flowers surrounding her are cut and grown by Yuken, seeming to gently hide her from view, offering her shade or relief from the spotlight. By using newspapers or shopping bags, Yuken takes X-Acto knife-kirie to a different level, one that is interacting and playing with the material objects and ideas of our society and our world, even using it to shield us.

6. Kako Ueda

Born in Tokyo in the 1960’s, and now a New Yorker, Kako Ueda is a kirie artist who plays with collage, and paint mediums as well. The artist describes her work to “oscillate between figuration and abstraction.” Her style attempts to take art to a deeper place of visual complexity. “I like what the cutting paper produces – an object that is neither 2-D nor 3-D, a kind of in-between thing,” says Ueda. The contemporary artist works in a way that is self-aware and stylized. Her pieces at times refer to the act and art of cutting itself, trying to push the boundaries of what kirie looks or feels like. For Ueda, there are no rules, and yet the stylization of the artist leaves a signature impression.

7. Yuko Yamamoto

Yuko Yamamoto is a multidisciplinary artist and person. In addition to illustration, watercolor, and other mediums and projects, Yamamoto also discovered the art of paper cutting. Yamamoto’s paper cutting, however, has a single subject and focus: plants. Paper plants. The white and red paper cutouts that can be seen on her website are elegant and full. They appear sturdy and yet delicate. A glance at her blog posts titled blog/funnny up will reveal an artist that is mesmerized by the every day: flowers and leaves scattered in the wind, I feel relieved when it’s raining in the morning, and the miraculous; she shares a story of saving a kitten from a storm.

8. Shu Kubo

A mixed media paper cutting artist with a background in architecture, Shu Kubo conducts frequent cultural exchanges and workshops across Europe, Asia, and North America. His series, Across the Border, Japonism of Kirie, is a bridge connecting Japanese culture and customs to the world and is inspired by Kubo’s experience of the devastating Kobe Earthquake in 1995.

His career began in 1977 with a debut exhibition that quickly garnered him attention throughout Japan. Afterwards, a stint in Spain solidified his approach to kirie where he combines washi paper, paints, acrylics, fabrics, sand and other materials to create urban cityscapes and Japanese landscapes. This unique approach to kirie led to several collaborations between Japan Post as well as Asahi Beer.

9. Nami Sakashita

“I make kirie,” reads the Twitter bio of artist Nami Sakashita. On her profile one can find multiple cut-outs of animals; a tiger with the texture of its fur, a zebra and it’s stripes. Similarly, Sakashita has also cut out samples of language: combinations of hiragana and kanji from what looks like somebody's notebook–an essay or some kind of diary. Surrounding each character is the square box that holds the letter in place. The hashtags clue us into the description of her work, which read: tiger, or Japanese. Her images are concerned with the “detail of kanji,” she says. This can also be seen in her attention to the animal portraits, which look as if they must feel soft to the touch.

10. Kanako Abe

Artist Kanako Abe cuts her work from a single sheet of paper. Before cutting the design, Abe gently sketches her idea in pencil. Once she begins the process of cutting, however, she cannot change or alter the design that she has planned out. “I have to think of the right patterns, controlling negative space, and make sure all the lines are connected so the art won’t fall apart once it’s finished,” she says. The nature of the single paper limitation allows for a silhouette to be born from her hours-long practice. The result is a work that tells a story, emotes a complex emotion from the meditative state in which she cut. The images include portraits of children, and creatures from the sea. At times a scenery is displayed onto a portrait or silhouette, blending and superimposing image on image, idea on idea.

11. Hina Aoyama

Hina Aoyama uses kirie, an artform with Chinese roots, with the Swiss paper cutting art of Scherenschnitte. Her distinctive fairytale-like lacy creations have captured the public eye since her award winning exhibition at the International Paper Art Triennial in 2008.

Along with authoring several how-to books dedicated to kirie (including Disney-inspired creations), her fantasy works have been displayed across Japan and the globe. From March 2019, her art will also be featured on a line of limited edition skin care products by the Japanese brand Evita. In the video above you can see the process of Aoyama creating one of her masterpieces.

12. Sachiko Abe

The famous performance piece titled Cut Paper, by Sachiko Abe is a combination of several sheets of A4 paper, which have been transformed into an elegant, white gown that she has adorned on her person. The multimedia artist does not limit herself to one medium, but often lands on performance as a constant. With kirie, the end result is not her only focus, instead it’s the act of cutting she’d like the audience to turn their attention to. Abe first discovered the meditative qualities of cutting paper in a mental institution. As an artist, she shreds paper for an audience to recreate the atmosphere of a calm, meticulous process. Abe talks about the “rhythm” of the scissors, and the texture of the finely cut paper as being crucial examples of her thought process–a kind of direct line to her mind. “While essentially personal, Cut Papers is a necessary practice for me to formulate my relationship to the external world,” she says.

13. Akira Nagaya

Representing another extreme form of kirie, self-taught artist Akira Nagaya draws upon his experience working in a restaurant creating sasabaran, food decorations out of bamboo leaves, to create astonishingly detailed works that are often left literally hanging by a thread. Nagaya’s Ito (thread) series is remarkable: the lines in each piece have been painstakingly carved down to the thickness of a single thread, creating the illusion of a hastily-done sketch.

This gallery features two large collections: Wa and You. Wa consists of Japan-inspired works which features the likeness of kabuki actors, recreation of Katsushika Kokusai’s woodblock prints, Buddhist icons and texts written in kanji. You, on the other hand, features whimsical scenes from nature: a kaleidoscope of butterflies, penguins mid-march, and a school of goldfish. Not to be missed, however, is his Post-It in which he transforms ordinary Post-It notes into irresistibly cute animals and whimsical characters.

14. Erica

Erica, with the twitter handle Erica_kirie, is a contemporary kirie artist who has made her paper cutting into a site specific practice. She does this by holding her kirie art up against a backdrop of nature, and snapping a photo. The effect allows for the scenery of a tree, the sky, or an array of flowers to be seen in what would be negative space. By combining scenes from nature with her modern manga-styled characters, she adds layers to the depth of what her photos capture in the moment. Erica often chooses bright colors to pop through the negative space of where she has cut, and seems to want her characters to be entertaining light-hearted thoughts, or in other words, to be experiencing joy.

Ready to try the art of Japanese paper cutting for yourself? Learn the basics of this intricate craft with a guide from Japanese publisher, Shufu no Tomo: Creative Paper Cutting! Is folding more your scene? Then check out Origami: Helpful Tips & Easy Instructions for Beginners!

December 17, 2021 | Craft

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