Delicate papercut artworks are created from carry bags

Thu 10 Jul 2025

Born in Okinawa, Japan in 1973, Yuken Teruya is part of the first generation to have no memories of a Japan not dominated by consumer culture. The experience of consumerist immersion is reflected in Teruya’s choice of materials, almost entirely drawn from the waste of mass-produced, mass-marketed goods and services — pizza delivery boxes, shoe boxes, carry bags, and newspapers are among the objects he teases into a delicate sculptural tableau.

In his best-known body of work, Notice – Forest, an ongoing series begun in 2003, Teruya creates tiny papercut trees from the bags of fast-food, coffee house and fashion chains, as well as art galleries — the artists exquisite trees within the very bags from which they were cut. Teruya’s delicate papercut artworks feature trees based on actual specimens from cities around the world. Each tree takes on the shape of its environment, with branches growing in their search for sunlight.

We might think of paper bags as having no real value, but here, the artist disrupts the bag’s lifecycle, inviting us to consider the real cost of its production to the environment. In their fragility, Teruya’s works have a sense of the precariousness of the beauty of nature, of the search for comfort in moments of grief caused by damage to the natural environment by large corporations, and are small memorials to the many trees that have been destroyed to create commercial bags.

View Yuken Teruya’s Notice - Forest 2006 in 'Wonderstruck' at the Gallery of Modern Art until 6 October 2025, delve into the captivating works on display with our weekly highlights, or embark on the journey of a Wonderstruck Wonderer with our digital interactive experience.

Wonderstruck
28 June – 6 October 2025
Gallery of Modern Art
Gallery 1.1 (The Fairfax Gallery), Gallery 1.2 & Gallery 1.3 (Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery)
Brisbane, Australia
Free entry