Larissa Nowicki

Larissa Nowicki’s hand-woven paperworks are created from pages taken out of novels, biographies, textbooks, maps, religious texts and dramatic works. These texts are quite literally deconstructed and then woven together as new works. Nowicki is not trying to construct deliberate metaphors or meaning through particular combinations of content contained in the original texts. Rather, her interest lies in the juxtaposition of different textures and word fragments to create new works that cannot be read in the traditional sense.

Nowicki originally trained and worked as a book designer. This body of work was a response to her desire to make work from the materials that comprise the printed book. She has overcome her original guilt about destroying books by choosing only to work with ones that have already fallen apart or been discarded. This approach allows her to pose questions about the cultural value and significance of the written word in both its original and new context.

The thin strips of shredded paper are delicate, but once worked into the warp the resulting piece has all the resilience of a piece of fabric. This manual process produces imperfections in the weave that serve as a reminder of the human agency involved in the production of the work. As such, these meticulously crafted pieces invite reflection on the processes of cultural production.

“I would like my work to remind us of the vast amount of information that is perceived, yet not stored in our minds categorically, to be recalled verbatim. Some information is remembered boldly, while other bits fade and recede however, all of it becomes woven together in our minds to create the fabric of who we are. Through my processes of finding old, used books, shredding them up and weaving them into new pieces I sublimate the original texts and appropriate them for my own use. Hidden within the warp and weft are glimpses of the public and private, the sane and the insane, the conscious and the unconscious, failures and success.”

Education
2006: MA Communication Art and Design, Royal College of Art, London, UK
1993: BA, Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions
2007: ‘Paper-thin worlds’, Man&Eve, London, UK — ‘Storytelling’, Man&Eve, London, UK — ‘Year_07 Art Projects’, London — ‘Aqua Wynwood art fair’, Miami, USA
2006: ‘Recent Graduate’s Work’, group show, Conran Headquarters, London — ‘The Show’, Royal College of Art — ‘Encyclopedia Typographica’, Royal College of Art
2004: ‘The Blue Room’, Royal College of Art

Prizes/Awards
2006: Augustus Martin Memorial Award, Innovation in Print Media, Royal College of Art
2002: Graphic Design Annual: ‘Giorgio Armani, Twenty-five Photographers’, and ‘Sugimoto Portraits’
2001: AIGA 365/22 – 50 Books/50 Covers: ‘Sugimoto, Theaters’
2000: Communication Arts Design Annual: ‘Giorgio Armani’ — I.D. Magazine: Annual Design Review: ‘Line Form Color, by Ellsworth Kelly’ — AIGA 365/21 – 50 Books/50 Covers: ‘Sugimoto, Portraits’

Publications
Author, ‘Who Needs a Client’, The Woodhill Park Critical Forum — Ed. Nick Evans, published by The Royal College of Art, 2007