Igor Kucinic is a silhouette artist born in Croatia and based in Barcelona. Since 1996 he has cut profile portraits by hand, with scissors and black paper. He spent fifteen years working in tourist areas of Spain and Europe, and since 2010 has worked only at events. He has close to a thousand events and around half a million silhouettes behind him. He works across Europe and the Middle East, and has had occasional commissions in the United States, Singapore and Malaysia. He works in Spanish, English, Italian and Croatian, and also communicates in French.
From graphic design to scissors
Igor Kucinic, silhouette artist
I was born in Croatia, then Yugoslavia. In the late eighties I moved to London to study graphic design. My training comes not from fine art but from design. And design left me with one idea for good: say a lot with very little. A couple of well-placed strokes can tell more than an image full of detail.
Life later took me to Spain. I knew Matisse's papiers découpés, that drawing with scissors, but it was seeing a few artists cutting silhouettes on the street that made something click. It was the minimalism I had always been drawn to, taken to the extreme: a black shape on white, and yet you recognise the person. I also liked the way it was presented, face to face, in direct contact with the person in front of you.
Fifteen years on the street
I started in 1996, in busy tourist areas of Spain and Europe: what is colloquially known as “the street”. For fifteen years I cut thousands upon thousands of profiles of strangers. That is where I really learned the craft: to look fast, to decide without hesitating and to get the likeness right first time, with no sketch and no second chance. Little by little, offers for events started to come in, and in 2010 I made the leap: since then I have worked only at events.
Likeness lives in the shape
Over the years I have come to a conviction: likeness is not in the line, it is in the shape. The nose and the chin matter, especially when they are very distinctive. But in my experience, for most people, I would say seven out of ten, what makes you recognise yourself is the whole shape of the head. That is why I work both sides of the profile: the back of the head is what closes the shape and makes it recognisable.
White as the frame
Some things you discover by chance. For years my cards had a printed frame around them: black, ornate, rustic… One day my printer broke down and I had to work without it. All that was left was the logo and signature at the bottom, and all the white around the silhouette. That day I understood something that, as a designer, I should have known: empty space is shape too. The white around the profile is its negative, the silhouette seen in reverse, and it holds it like a living frame. No printed frame could compete with that. Since then I let the paper be the frame.
One cut, two silhouettes
I cut the paper folded, so every cut gives me two identical silhouettes. I mount one black on white; the other, on the back of the card, white on black: the same profile and its negative. Every guest takes both home and chooses which side to look at.
How I work today
I work standing, moving among the guests, with no stage and no technical set-up. Each portrait takes me under two minutes: an average of 35 silhouettes an hour, around a hundred at a three-hour event. A small crowd usually gathers around me to watch the profile appear. Every guest takes their silhouette home on a card with the event or brand logo.
I have worked for Apple, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, FC Barcelona, Dior, Chanel, Loewe, Emirates and Qatar Airways, among others, at galas, launches, trade shows, company dinners and weddings. You can see some of those events in the portfolio or see how I work at corporate events, trade shows and weddings.