Fantasy sculptures Completed made from Paper

We are Ethel Ortiz and Dolores Gadler, two paper artists known collectively as Ortiz-Gadler. We live in Rovereto, a beautiful town by the Adige river in northern Italy. We make paper sculptures, dioramas, collages and pieces of jewelry using traditional techniques such as paper cutting and carving, and recycling magazine papers, antique books, old letters and postcards and other reclaimed materials. Ethel is an anthropologist and Dolores, her daughter, is a translator, both with a passion for paper crafts. Dolores grew up among Ethel’s collages decorating walls and furniture and paper mache sculptures, watercolors and inks. In 2016 it seemed like a natural progression to turn this love for paper art into our full-time occupation. Paper is a medium we have loved and used since we began our creative practice. Its properties lend themselves exactly to the type of work we have in mind. We adore its dichotomies: it is pure and bold, it is simple and precious, it is colorless and colorful. Through our work we pursue our fascination for the fantastic and the bizarre that can be found in the cabinets of curiosities in fashion during the 1600s, the entomology collections of the 18th century, the classic fairy tales of the 19th century, and the 20th century circus world. One of our latest works is a revisitation of ex-votos completely made in paper and papier-mâché. Our work always starts with research. We explore the elements of the fairy tales, we visit collections in natural museums, we discover forgotten treasures in flea markets and draw inspiration from them. We use all this information as inspiration for new collages, dioramas and sculptures. The result of our work are unique pieces of art completely handmade in paper, that tell a story of their own in each of their details."