At the intersection of tradition and innovation, Sarah Brayer, Aimee Lee, and Lin Yan transform handmade paper into powerful expressions of cultural memory and contemporary identity. Each artist works within distinct East Asian papermaking traditions—Brayer with Japanese washi, Lee with Korean hanji, and Lin with Chinese Xuanzhi—yet all three engage in a meditative dialogue between ancient craft and modern vision. Their works embody the paradoxical nature of paper—seemingly delicate yet remarkably resilient, characteristics that create a powerful metaphor.

Through their hands, the medium of paper allows space for improvisation and renewal, while remaining a vessel of remembrance and tradition. Whether through Brayer’s metaphysical contemplations and fluid compositions, created as the wet fibers coalesce on a screen, Lee’s exploration of self and community through engagement with harvested materials and labor-intensive methods, or Lin’s reflection on the fleeting quality of time and memory by recording the physical texture of architecture in sculpted paper, these artists demonstrate how paper—with its ability to hold both history and possibility in its fibers—can be a catalyst for becoming something completely new.

Images:

Lin Yan (Chinese), All Streets, 2011. Ink, Xuan paper. ©Lin Yan

Aimee Lee (American), Multi, 2023. Ink, printed beaten and laced mulberry paper bark, and natural dye on hanji, thread. ©Aimee Lee

Sarah Brayer (American, active in Japan), From the Sea to the Stars, from the Luminosity series, 2019. Poured mulberry paperwork with phosphorescent pigment and gold leaf. ©Sarah Brayer