Papercutting is one of the oldest art forms, known to be traced back to around 105 AD, when paper was invented in China. My scissors drawings interweave multi-cultural stories of mythology and folk tradition. Earth, nature and it's deities, along with a long ribbon of myths are some of the resources I use in my themes. I like to give my work a modern but timeless appeal. Usually I go by its weight, texture and color, when I choose a paper. Like a sculptor, I envision the 3D aspect of the project, the artwork already within the paper. Texture and color have to correspond with the theme of the image. I work with paper, but at times, I use copper sheet as well. Over two decades ago, I started cutting little paper figures bookmarks, which quickly developed into much larger artwork. Papercutting is my passion!

Ramekon O’Arwisters lives and works in San Francisco, California. He was a recipient of a 2002 Artadia Award and is 2014 Eureka Fellow, administered through the Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco. He has exhibited at the Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, California and the Kato Gallery, Tokyo, Japan. His numerous group exhibitions include Past Forward: African Spirituality in Contemporary Black Art at the African American Art & Cultural Complex (AAACC), San Francisco, California and Decoding Identity: I Do It For My People, Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco, California. O’Arwisters was honored with his second San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant in 2011. He has been actively involved in residences and guest lectures at Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Vermont Studio Center, and Sonoma State University. His works are included in the public collections of the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture at Duke University and the Achenbach Foundation, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California. He is currently working on an exhibition about art and spirituality for Communing With The Unseen: African Spirituality in Contemporary Art as an artist-in-residence at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California.

I have fallen in love with wood, and the carving that it invites. It is the inspiration for my carved paintings that explore the textural richness and variety of nature. Through carving I can investigate nature’s formal structures and wild beauty, and through painted color I can lure the eye with highly focused monochromatic color.

My work is influenced by Japanese art and by the California Arts and Crafts movement, with their shared insistence on grace and compositional beauty.

The poetic impulse is also crucial, and the poet Pablo Neruda offers a telling insight:

“Blossom and water and wheat kernel share one precious consistency: the sumptuous appeal of the tactile.”

It is this surprising and endlessly varied tactility that moves me to create this artwork.

My work often references the life sciences and the human body through mechanical action and movement, drawing comparisons between the ways living organisms operate, and that of machines. Like living cells, the installations I create use light, air, water and electricity, to become functional and interactive. My work often involves the sensation of touch and the element of surprise. It can be playful, alarming, and sensual all at once. I want to blur the line between life and something that mimics life through interaction, growth,movement, or decay.

So much of our perceived well being is dependent on the technology we use to create mental and physical comfort. We are surrounded by simple life support systems such as lighting, air conditioning, and household appliances. When our survival is threatened by physical illness we are plugged into machines to keep us alive. It is our moment to moment relationship with modern technology, both simple and advanced, that informs my work. Most of my installations look like or reference appliances but their intended function is unexpected and therefore creates an uncertain and sometimes humorous relationship between human and device.

Peter Howells newest work,

I work with stone, ink, glass, paper, and more from my Revere Street studio in San Francisco.

I welcome exhibit enquiries, and studio visitors by appointment.

My current work is highly influenced by my work performing wildlife monitoring. I am interested in the interaction of parameters imposed upon a system and the chance observations made within those parameters. Most of my work involves repetition and/or ritual to some extent.