Meet Thomas Witte, Who Turns the Everyday into Works of Paper Cut Art

Thomas Witte walks around the neighborhood with his daughter (and now with his brand new son as well) and sees details that most people overlook, and he thinks about what his next series of paper cuts could be. In the past, he’s turned his grandfather’s old slides into incredibly detailed works of art, and these days he has his sights set on the industrial and the commonplace of streets like Coney Island and Flatbush Avenues.

“Where I live and where I work is a huge influence on me, because it’s where I’m spending most of my time,” Thomas explained. “And in this neighborhood, it’s the stuff you see, the stuff you walk by, the stuff you don’t pay attention to. There’s something that happens that you wouldn’t normally expect when you’re working from things that nobody’s focusing on, that they’re only looking at for a split second as they pass by.”

Like the photos plucked from his grandfather’s slide carousels, he says that the details you might miss are the parts that are the most interesting to translate into clean, white paper cuts.

“It’s the same sort of feeling that you get from a garage or a nail salon that you walk by every day,” he explained. “You don’t really look at all the detail that’s in there. And it might seem like an incredibly boring photograph, but when it’s turned into this medium, it becomes about the pattern in the awnings and the detail of the brickwork, the shadows or the reflection in the window. All of a sudden it becomes simplified in a way, but it also becomes so much more complex than you would think that thing as a physical object would be.”

Seeing what the commonplace becomes through his hand is a delight, as you can see from the video above. Thomas invited me and local photographer/videographer Antonio M. Rosario to his studio, and you can get a sense of his work and the detail that goes into each piece in the video Antonio made. But you can also check out the work in person at a show that begins its run this week.

And this may not even be the first time you’ve seen his work–a series of his oil paintings of Coney Island Avenue were displayed at The Farm on Adderley a few years ago. Whether you’re familiar with his work or not, you may recognize Thomas from seeing him around the neighborhood, walking with his family or grabbing a cup of coffee.

“The family aspect of this neighborhood, the friendships that I’ve made, the people that I see every day at the coffee shop, it’s like nothing I’ve ever had before,” Thomas said. “You walk down the street just from your apartment to the subway, and you can stop and have four or five significant conversations on the way, and you genuinely want to talk to the people. There’s something really, really nice about that, it’s like an old neighborhood feel. I don’t think that’s the same in most neighborhoods. I think it’s very specific to ours.”

In addition to the friendships he’s made here, he appreciates the neighborhood support. He’s sold some pieces to neighbors, and he says it means more to him to know his work stays close to home.

“You can sit and have a conversation with the person who bought your work and you know where it’s going,” he said. “If I sell something to somebody in Manhattan, I may never see it again. But there’s a chance that I could go visit the work when it’s sold in the neighborhood, so there’s something kind of cool about that.”

When you see him around, be sure to say hello, and ask him about what he’s working on next. As his art has moved from sculptures and paintings to stencils and paper cuts, it’ll be fun to see how this new stage evolves, both for him and for us.

“It all seems so new,” he said. “I’m excited to expand and see where it goes. I’m brimming with ideas.”

A Cut Above, which features the works of Thomas and several other paper cut artists, opens on Thursday, May 10 with a reception from 6-9pm at the Christopher Henry Gallery at 127 Elizabeth Street in Manhattan.

The music in the video is by Thomas’ brother Matt, performing as Coach N’ Commando, and he’s playing an acoustic show tonight at Tammany Hall on the Lower East Side. You can also hear more here.

To see more of Antonio’s work, visit his website.