In this series, paper is the essence of the work. My love and respect for paper began a long time ago when, as a young girl, I would often go to the shop of my father, one of the best bookbinders in the city of Florence. Going to his shop it was like a trip to heaven. I would roam around, finding random rolls of tape, strings, unusual bottles of glue, but especially an eclectic variety of papers – heavy, light, shiny, matte, white, off-white, textured, printed, faded. And I would bring away as much as I could carry, as if it were an undiscovered treasure.
Many years later, for Dogs on Paper, I searched for and collected specific shades of tissue paper, oriental paper and mostly hand-made paper. Occasionally I drew my subject first, but most times I let the ink spread directly on the paper. Different kinds of tissue were then cut and layered, using transparency and opaqueness to my advantage, sometimes by applying white gauche, as in “Dog Posing.“The pieces evolved slowly and changed many times throughout the process, leading occasionally to exciting surprises, such as when I found “Large Dog (II)” secretly hiding behind “Large Dog (I).“