Diminishing Returns | Works in cut paper by Sonja Peterson

“I employ motifs of common agricultural plants and animals, underground roots, spider webs, and vine-like growths of the external and internal bodily world to create hanging landscapes. Presently, I am interested in plants and items that were collected and traded as a form of currency. Trade is what connected all sides of the world. Trade is what links the natural world with the banking world that interlinks economies across the globe. Over 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. They developed different suites of flora & fauna and trade has collided the world back together.”

Sonja Peterson’s work expands from small collages into installation, sculpture and large scale papercuts and multi-media dealing with hidden environmental and geo-political systems. She looks at historical events and science to absorb present day dilemmas … she doesn’t offer answers but attempts loose comparative analysis through imaginative narratives that pull from across times. The slow process of cutting visual networks is an action that fulfills a need to unravel a truth within the endless matrix of information that Peterson negotiates in today’s world. The works structural integrity is, at times, reliant on its interconnectivity; if elements disconnect the entire system is in threat of collapse.

Sonja Peterson is a Minneapolis-based artist who has been awarded Artist-in-Residence at the Bell Museum of Natural History and the American Swedish Institute, and has exhibited nationally and internationally.