Igra – Play of Form: The Paper Cuts of Natalia Alf

Natalia Alf’s paper cuts form an independent strand of her work. While her painting explores the fleeting image of memory, these cutouts focus on clarity and precision. Each piece is created without a drawing, guided intuitively by the act of cutting. Starting from folded A4 sheets, Alf produces mirrored positive and negative shapes — each one unique.

Her approach grows from two sources: the vessel forms of her graduate project and the ornamental patterns of Russian wooden architecture. From this emerge two groups of works: geometric compositions that explore the tension between positive and negative space and vertical figurative pieces in which abstract fragments form simplified bodies.

Both groups share a concern with form, reduction, rhythm, and repetition. In the geometric works, individual shapes are placed, mirrored, or used as spray stencils. Alf’s visual language resonates with Eastern European papercutting traditions, not as quotation but as structural inspiration translated into a contemporary idiom.

As with Matisse, form arises directly through the cut; yet Alf avoids ornamentality, creating autonomous, often asymmetrical forms. Central is the relationship between positive and negative, between surface and space.

In her figurative works, abstract shapes assemble into clearly articulated figures — readable yet non-narrative. Their kinship with folk art or childlike directness is conceptual rather than illustrative. The figures do not depict; they simply exist.

Alf’s paper cuts combine formal analysis with playful openness. They are visual research: decisive in material and method, yet open to what emerges.

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                                      Vivien Rathjen
                                      Art Historian (M.A.)