Bianca Levan is a Vietnamese-American papercut artist based in San Francisco, California. She is fascinated with the process by which contemplation, emotion, and choice weave a path in time.
As a self-taught artist, Bianca follows curiosity and is driven by a desire for expression. Her hand-cut work embraces imperfections left by the knife blade and the inherent constraints of black paper and negative spaces. She was raised in Moorpark, California, surrounded by farmlands, orange groves, and the Santa Susana Mountains that have been deeply embedded in her memory. She graduated from University of California, Davis, where she studied Biology and English Literature, the combination of which greatly informed her detailed and narrative ways of expression.
Bio
Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions nationwide, including The Brand Library, MarinMOCA, SOMArts Cultural Center, and Voss Gallery.
Bianca was selected as 2023 ArtSpan Amplify Juror’s Choice by Valerie Imus, Artistic Director and Co-Director of Southern Exposure, and is a member of the 2023 Ruby Creatives in Residence Program.
Exhibitions and Honors
Artist statement
The process of papercutting is a method of emotional processing. The journey to create a piece is a journey through a psychological landscape. My cuttings generally originate from an idea I’m exploring, an internal debate, or an observation about lived experiences. Since the body carries emotional experiences, both past and present, I am able to connect the feelings to thoughts through the physicality of papercutting.
With each artwork, I begin by crafting a scene that conveys the internal world I’m experiencing or questioning. These imagined landscapes often include naturalistic elements, such as trees, flora, oceans, and mountains, existing alongside manufactured ones, often taking shapes of buildings or boats. Using a blade, I cut and extract pieces from paper.
What results is a papercut imbued with the imperfections that arise from a precise tool in imprecise human hands. I revel in the uniqueness of these variations and hope that they serve to personalize the work so that others may find their own imperfect, evolving, growing stories within it.
Studio Tour
Bianca gives a tour of her San Francisco art studio and shares insight about her influences, tools and skillful techniques.
