Exhibit is a cut above the rest

PROVO — A pair of artists proficient in the Old World art of papercutting will display their works at Terra Nova Gallery throughout May.

German and Swiss immigrants brought papercutting to America in the late 17th century. They settled in Pennsylvania and founded some of the best-known centers of papercutting artistry today.

California native Rick James Marzullo is not only known as a master papercutter, he also paints in oil, acrylic and watercolor and has created and designed in many other mediums, including stained glass, wrought iron, ceramics, wood carving and embroidery. His artistic pursuits go back 40 years, Gallery owner David Hawkinson said.

For the last 15 years Marzullo's favorite medium of expression has been papercutting.

"I began cutting in 1967 after seeing the silhouette cutter at Disneyland. I was fascinated by his ability to effortlessly cut one profile after another," he said.

"Because of connections to both his wife's and his own Danish heritage, Marzullo has become a well-known creator of Danish and Scandinavian themed cuttings in addition to his many folktale, landscape and historically themed cuttings," Hawkinson said.

Marzullo is often commissioned to create intricate cuttings for weddings and anniversaries, as well as works that showcase family genealogies. His family heirloom pieces combine information about two or three generations in the same cutting.

His work is in private collections across the United States, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Denmark, England, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Marzullo's papercuttings are also featured in the permanent collections of Grand View College, the Elverhoj Museum of History and Art, and the Hans Christian Andersen Museum, Solvang, Calif., and at Hydgaardsminde, Rebild National Park, Denmark.

Randel McGee's interest is in both the visual and performing arts. After seeing puppetry on stage at Salzburg Marionette Theater in Salzburg, Austria, his attention turned to that medium.

He studied puppetry and theater at Brigham Young University and particularly the art of shadow puppetry — silhouetted images performed behind or projected onto a screen.