Art Form(s)
Connect
I am interested in collaborative work.
Minneapolis
Artist Statement
I create artwork, these days mostly papercuts, with the goal of creating something visually interesting that is beautiful or provocative or challenging or all of those things. My work is often inspired by text and has text in it. In addition to muse- and life-inspired work, I also create commissions – for weddings, baby namings, anniversaries, b’nei mitzvahs, birthdays, celebrations, goodbyes, and many other kinds of occasions.
Aaron was born in St Louis, MO, and lived in Los Angeles, CA, and Teaneck, NJ during his childhood. He attended college at Columbia University in the City of New York in the 1990’s and lived in Brooklyn for 10 years after that. He has lived in Minnesota since 2009.
A multi-talented artist, Aaron has studied and worked in a variety of media, including watercolor painting, figure sculpture in clay, welded steel sculpture, and pencil, charcoal, and ink drawing. Over the past 15 years, Aaron has focused his artistic practice on papercutting.
Aaron interprets contemporary experience and political events through papercuts that are rigorous, beautiful, and thought-provoking. This is a new direction for Jewish papercuts, which traditionally served primarily to embellish holiday and life cycle events. His papercuts often spring forth from texts and include text in them, and with them Aaron seeks to question or reinforce meanings, and to comfort or challenge the viewer.
In papercutting, everything you see is defined by the absence around it, something that is true, but often unacknowledged, in our own lived experience.
Aaron’s papercuts have been exhibited at PSJC in Brooklyn, at the St. Paul JCC, at the Sabes JCC, and at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. He has taught about papercut art in New York and St. Paul, and he participated in the Minneapolis Jewish Artists’ Laboratory.
Education: After high school, he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University in New York, with a double-major in Environmental Biology and German. After college he founded a website development company, Springthistle Technology, through which he funds his artistic and family life. When not making art, Aaron plays cello and guitar, cooks and bicycles, parents his children, and tries to practice tikkun olam, healing the world, in whatever ways he can.
A multi-talented artist, Aaron has studied and worked in a variety of media, including watercolor painting, figure sculpture in clay, welded steel sculpture, and pencil, charcoal, and ink drawing. Over the past 15 years, Aaron has focused his artistic practice on papercutting.
Aaron interprets contemporary experience and political events through papercuts that are rigorous, beautiful, and thought-provoking. This is a new direction for Jewish papercuts, which traditionally served primarily to embellish holiday and life cycle events. His papercuts often spring forth from texts and include text in them, and with them Aaron seeks to question or reinforce meanings, and to comfort or challenge the viewer.
In papercutting, everything you see is defined by the absence around it, something that is true, but often unacknowledged, in our own lived experience.
Aaron’s papercuts have been exhibited at PSJC in Brooklyn, at the St. Paul JCC, at the Sabes JCC, and at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. He has taught about papercut art in New York and St. Paul, and he participated in the Minneapolis Jewish Artists’ Laboratory.
Education: After high school, he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University in New York, with a double-major in Environmental Biology and German. After college he founded a website development company, Springthistle Technology, through which he funds his artistic and family life. When not making art, Aaron plays cello and guitar, cooks and bicycles, parents his children, and tries to practice tikkun olam, healing the world, in whatever ways he can.
Work Samples
