The birds just took off. Even for their creator, it was a little surprising.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” said Columbian artist Diana Beltran Herrera of her first commission in 2012 to make 12 paper birds and flowers for a agency in the US.
“I didn’t think it was possible to live from this, because in Columbia, no one lives from this. So I thought it was not going to happen. But it was a passion and a hobby and I like it.
“When I got that job, I felt, there is something going on here, so I should carry on.”
Herrera has now been crafting paper for six years and has made more than 200 of the delicate avian sculptures, among various other projects, from book and album covers to designs for magazines and advertisements.
The 30-year-old’s works have been exhibited in the UK (where she is based), Europe, the US and Asia.
A sample is now on show at LCX Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui, where she spoke with Coconuts Hong Kong.
Depending on their size and intricacy, the birds, she says, take from a few days to a few weeks to make, and sell from between UK£1,000 (HK$11,100) and UK£6,000 (HK$67,000).
Like a birdwatcher, she’s slowly ticking off more species. From popular favorites like the kingfisher and the macaw, to flamingos and ducks, each is the result of a delicate process of gluing together numerous small pieces with liquid silicon. The mandarin ducks (pictured below) have 4000 individual paper feathers each.
“Many people who do birds do the three or five same birds. I always try to go to the trickiest ones, because I know no one will be able to do that,” she said.
Artistic from a young age, Herrera graduated with a degree in industrial design, though decided the field didn’t play to her strengths.
“I couldn’t find a job because I wasn’t very good with the computer,” she said. “[But] I was very good at doing things with my hands.”
Her next step was a stint in Norway working with a woodcraft artist. Though not keen on the material and tools required to work it, Herrera said she found inspiration in the country’s natural beauty, and with paper she found, after some experimentation, an easy way to express it.
“I like how paper can become a volume. That was my interest, how you turn something this flat into an object and make it stand,” she said. “It’s like atoms, when you re-organize them, they create a new shape.”
Though works inspired by nature, such as birds, insects, fish and plants, are her wheelhouse, she likes a challenge. Her side project is to recreate all the objects of her house as paper models.
“It would be silly to just stay with birds because I know how to make them,” she said. “So I’m always trying to do things that I find challenging and difficult.”
“Every commission gives me room to learn.”
You can see Herrera’s work at LCX, Level 3, Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui until March 2.
Reader Interactions