Peaceable Kingdom: The Art of Juniper Tangpuz
Paper Creatures with Character
Juniper Tangpuz crouches on a platform in his Arts Incubator studio and gestures to the zoo of creatures poised before him. The petite wild things are unlike any seen at the Kansas City Zoo or in the wild. Rather, these beasts spring from the imagination of Tangpuz—artist, sculptor, and inventor of wildly delightful objects and animals.
A glance around his studio reveals a few of Tangpuz’ creations inspired by years spent playing the violin as a teen. Musical instruments made of paper or wood hang on the wall. He removes one from its perch and draws the bow to elicit music that eludes human ears. Attached to the violin is a paper cylinder, a zoetrope, with printed images of a can-can dancer. She raises her skirt and kicks her legs as the cylinder spins, synchronized to the motion of the bow sawing back and forth. “It is music that only the dancer inside the disk can hear,” says Tangpuz.
Tangpuz intends for his creations to be held and handled, unlike much of the paintings and objets d’art found throughout the Arts Incubator, a collective of studio spaces housed in a three-story building in the heart of the Crossroads. “I make people experience by touching the sculpture to figure it out,” says Tangpuz. “It’s breaking the rules.”
That notion of breaking rules is a fundamental tenet of what this artist does. Foremost, he taps into an innate vision that dwells on the possibility of ideas and the potential of materials, much like the limitless creativity of children and inventors that dream beyond the obvious. Looking at the work of this young artist is reminiscent of contemplating the once-fantastic images of Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical drawings of flying machines. Once understood, an “aha” moment strikes the viewer. What can be imagined can be created.
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