In the hands of Brazilian Carlos Meira, paper is not confined to the role of support for artistic expression. With ever-surpring results, Meira‘s mastery assigns to paper the main role in his artistic practice:
Designer and art director in the advertising industry, Meira also developed his creative energies through learning paper sculpture with amazing results. 
Paper is an amazing medium, incredibly versatile and extremely fragile at the same time. Meira‘s art turns the basic flatness of a paper sheet into lively colourful bas-reliefs. It takes extreme patience to craft paper in this way. The process consists in drawing, colouring the paper, marking it, cutting it and shaping it before the final assemblage. Loving, patient and gentle gestures are the vital ingredients that Meira masters with slow and precise movements of his hands and fingers. 
Surprisingly for such excellent results, Meira is essentially self-taught in the art of paper sculpture, an art to which he has started devoting more and more time after returning from Portugal to Brazil in the 1990s. And his visual universe is animated with the imagery and ravishing colours of his homeland, from the Carnival costumes to the luxuriant flora and fauna populating his art. 
You can find more of Carlos Meira‘s paper sculptures on his website, Behance page and blog.
Images courtesy of Carlos Meira.
(via Living Design)
Observatory Mansions (Italian Version)
Observatory Mansions 