Jaq Belcher

Jaq Belcher is a New York-based artist working with handcut paper. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Belcher received her Bachelor of Arts from Melbourne University, studied gold- and silversmithing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and received her Master of Arts Administration degree from the University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts.

Belcher explores energy, consciousness, light, and form through drawing on paper with a blade. She uses an X-acto knife and handmade stencils in the shape of the vesica piscis (sacred geometry) in minutely scaled sizes. Belcher composes and creates fields and imagery – both figurative and abstract – on pristine sheets of archival white paper. The vesica piscis forms in the paper can be made of two, three, four, five, or six cuts. They are either completely excised from the sheet, or left attached by a corner or small arc, and then raised to catch light and form shadow. Each cut is accounted for and the final count is noted at the base of each work alongside three dates: the date the underlying drawing was started, the date the last cut was made, and the date the work was completed.

Originally a trained sculptor while studying metalwork at Melbourne University, Belcher turned to paper as her preferred medium upon moving to New York as she prioritized simplicity in her practice. Her investigations into the paper are studies in matter manipulation. The blade ruptures the surface of paper, which holds the memory of this energy transfer in its completed state. The resultant work is electric with this memory – radiant both as a whole, and as a sum of its parts. Stillness and focus are the foremost tenets of her studio practice, of which calmness and serenity the direct results.

Belcher has recently begun to explore ephemeral installations using the “seeds” (the excised pieces of paper) from work to compose intricate mandalas on the floor lasting only for the length of an exhibition. One “deinstall” included a dancer sweeping away the mandala with his feet in a public performance. Often an unframed, large-scale work from whence the seeds were born will hang above the mandala on the floor. The repurposing of these “scraps” is another way Belcher explores reincarnation and the transfer of energy in her work.

  • SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018 White Noise, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville
2017 An Inverception, Heather Gaudio Fine Art, New Canaan, CT
2016 Aligned: Sit, Breathe, Slow Down, Relax, Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Dallas
2015 Hidden Light, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville
2011 Suchness, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville
2005 preliminary realms, Haven Gallery, Bronx, NY

  • EDUCATION

2005 National Academy School of Fine Arts, Master Drawing Class, New York
1999 Master of Arts Admin, Major Sculpture, University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts
1997 B.F.A (Gold & Silversmithing), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
1993 Bachelor of Education (Visual Arts), The University of Melbourne