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Paper artist Raya Sader Bujana crafts houseplants that you can hold between two fingers. Ficus, monstera, and cacti are just some of the miniature faux potted plants that she’s cultivated with an X-Acto knife and tweezers. The ongoing three-year project is called Tiny Big Paper House Plants, and each sculpture recreates the botanicals in painstaking detail. Bujana uses folding, scoring, and wrapping to convey the variegation in leaves as well as their stiff forms or fullness. She doesn’t forget about the pots, either. They, too, have the same amazing attention to detail as Bujana builds tiny woven and rope-coiled planters.
The meticulous nature of Tiny Big House Plants means that it takes the artist between five and six weeks to complete a single sculpture. During that time, Bujana includes as many details as she can muster—all without sketching her ideas first. “I don't have a plan when I start creating one, except the type of plant that I want to work on,” she tells My Modern Met, “other than that I just start working on it and create along the way.” This allows her flexibility and the chance to experiment. “I like applying techniques from other artistic disciplines or crafts, such as weaving or basketry and translating them to the language of paper,” she explains, “so the baskets of these tiny plants are woven like real baskets with paper.”
Luckily, Bujana is continuing her work on Tiny Big Paper House Plants. “My intention is to slowly continue to grow this series and to try and reach a new level of detail with each new piece.” Scroll down to see more of Bujana’s sculptures and then follow her on Instagram to see what she’s crafting next. A selection of her paper art is also for sale in her Etsy shop, Little Ray of Sunflower.
Raya Sader Bujana creates handmade plant sculptures out of paper that are small enough to fit between your fingers.
