Inspired by the vibrancy of couture, art, theatre, and architecture, the British artist and paper sculptor Zoe Bradley (UK, 1973) has always been captivated by transformation — the act of creating something extraordinary from the simplest materials. “I used to collect images from Vogue and National Geographic,” she recalls. “I’ve always loved working with my hands, discovering beauty in the unexpected.”

Her work is rooted deeply in the natural world. Flowers, foliage, and the quiet geometry of growth shape her formal vocabulary. Yet Bradley is drawn to contrast: lightness and weight, fragility and monumentality, the ephemeral and the enduring.

In the exhibition Paper Couture, Bradley’s ambition is both poetic and precise: to invite viewers into a realm where paper breathes, petals unfurl in slow motion, and the everyday is alchemized into the extraordinary. Drawing upon her background as a fashion designer, she approaches paper as if it were fabric. “I fold, curl, score, stitch — as a designer would with cloth,” she explains. Each sheet is transformed into a sculptural form, alive with movement and life.

Recent explorations with digital technologies, including laser cutting, have opened new possibilities, enabling even greater intricacy. Bradley works instinctively, treating paper not as a technical material but as a living form.