John Chamberlain – Papier Paradiso: Zeichnungen, Collagen, Reliefs, Bilder offers a revealing look at a lesser-explored dimension of

John Chamberlain’s creative practice beyond his iconic automotive metal sculptures. The publication brings together works on paper—drawings, collages, relief constructions, and picture works—that illuminate Chamberlain’s experimentations with form, material, and composition in a more intimate register.

In these works, paper becomes a site of transformation. Scraps, folds, tears, and layered surfaces challenge traditional distinctions between drawing and object. Collage and relief motifs emerge from engagements with chance, gesture, and material encounter, resulting in images that oscillate between abstraction and physical presence. Chamberlain’s approach in Papier Paradiso reveals a tactile sensibility that values process as much as outcome: marks and juxtapositions expose decisions, revisions, and play.

The publication situates these works within the broader arc of Chamberlain’s thinking about structure and space. Even at small scale, his visual language engages with rhythm, tension, and the interplay of line and surface. Papier Paradiso shows how drawing and collage function not as preparatory steps for sculpture but as autonomous arenas of inquiry—where picture and object converge, and where materiality itself becomes an active force in the making of form.