With the flip of a switch, the paper constructions of Hari & Deepti glow with a muted yellow light. The Mumbai-based husband-and-wife duo have worked exclusively with white paper since 2010, using illumination and shadow to build sculptural scenes shaped by folklore, mythology, and small human rituals.
“Paper is brutal in its simplicity,” the artists say. “It is skin and skeleton.” Their work treats the material as both structure and surface. Each piece is assembled from dozens of hand-cut layers, carefully spaced to control depth, shadow, and movement once lit from behind.
The resulting scenes sit somewhere between sculpture and stage set. Tiny figures skate, walk, and gather inside dense forest landscapes. Nothing feels decorative. The compositions reward slow looking, with meaning emerging through scale, silence, and proximity rather than color or excess detail.
A selection of these works is currently on view at Nucleus in Portland, Oregon, in an exhibition titled All That Glitters Is Gold. The presentation focuses on human connection as something fragile and shared, shaped by presence rather than spectacle. “It is about everything human and the connections we carry,” the artists explain.
All That Glitters Is Gold runs through January 11. More work by Hari & Deepti is available on their website and Instagram.
