THE STORYTELLER, THE LISTENER AND OUR STORY

Paper and Light Installation
2021

Layla May Arthur makes installations of meticulously hand cut paperwork, which are theatrically illuminated to create an otherworldly environment. As a viewer, you step into the shadows of the work to find yourself absorbed with the intricate imagery and slight movements of the shadows as they play over your skin. You temporarily feel as if you are in a dream like place, where the stories around you breath and you become immersed in the narratives dialogue. 

 Arthur found her inspiration for this work in the stories her parents told her as a child growing up on the island of Jersey. Her parents travelled frequently before she was born and as she grew up, shared with her stories from faraway lands. Arthur spent her childhood fantasising about the lives and lands in these stories and imagining from her parent’s words exactly what they looked like. She would frequently act out the stories in childhood games, where they would become entirely new narratives as she dreamed about the possibilities these stories could hold. 

 With her work, Arthur encourages the viewer to use their own associations and interpretations of her imagery to dream about where the narrative has come from and where is it going. It is not about a precise genesis of a storyline but how we work with possibility within narratives. These are the fragments of narratives which Arthur remembers imagining in her childhood; as they were, but also reconstructed by her imagination. 

She invites you to step into her world of stories to think back on the stories you already know and to dream your own new narratives. 

INDIVIDUAL PAPER SCULPTURES