For two-years during the Covid-19 pandemic, book & paper artist Drew Matott, walked around the streets of Hamburg picking up discarded face masks from the ground. He brought the material back to his studio in Hamburg, where he disinfected, pulped and transformed it into handmade paper. He created over 4000 sheets of A3 paper for artists, such as A Revolutionary Press (USA), Jana Schumacher (Germany) and Thomas Judish (Germany).

In addition to making plain sheets of paper, Matott used the pulped facemasks to make a series of paper portraits of the different variants. These sheets were formed by pouring the pulp onto a 115cm mould, distressing the wet sheet by splashing holes using water. After the water was removed from the papermaking vat, the freshly formed sheet of paper was selectively hand pressed and then pulp printed using a silkscreen stencil and finely processed and pigmented cotton pulp. The end result was a series of pulp paintings that have been exhibited in the United States, Germany, France and Slovenia.

Matott seeks to draw attention to the magnitude of litter that was created during the Pandemic; while reminding the us of teh severity of the Covid threat, the reasons why masks were being worn at all.

Text by Drew Luan Matott