Features: Hanne Yates | Papercuts

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The Review - FEATURE
Published: 2 April 2009

Hanne Yates: 85, and still cutting it

Paper art a cut above

AT 85, Hampstead artist Hanne Yates’s first exhibition is far better late than never.
Hanne, who lives with her artist husband Jack in Lindfield Gardens, is a photographer, puppet-maker and retired German schoolteacher; but, above all, she is a paper cutter. She spends hours creating symmetrical patterns and scenes of incredible detail and intricacy, despite failing eyesight and unsteady hands.
“My eyesight is not good and my hands shake from tiredness, but with the scissors it’s somehow possible. It has become increasingly difficult and I can only work in short bursts using a special magnifying glass. It takes me up to 15 hours to make a cut,” says Hanne when we meet at her exhibition at the Henderson Court Resource for the Elderly in Fitzjohn’s Avenue. “But I do it because the result is worth it. I surprise myself when I open the paper up and find out what it looks like.”
Hanne, whose work is archived in The German Guild of Paper-Cutters, agreed to display strange, fantastical work from the past 15 years at the centre after she noticed a Christmas card she had sent to staff eight years ago was still hanging in pride of place on the wall.
SIMON WROE

* Hanne Yates’s paper-cuts are at Henderson Court, 102 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, NW3, until April 5

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