Following the Paper Trail at DAF Frankfurt 2025

One of the threads weaving through this year’s Discovery Art Fair Frankfurt is made of paper.

Not dominant, but quietly powerful — fragile, timeless, and deeply human.

Paper has always had a special pull for me. I’ve worked with draughtsmen and printmakers, watched hands move lightly over its surface, seen mistakes turn into gestures. It’s both ethereal and enduring — depending on how you treat it. Works on paper demand attention, care, and emotional investment. Maybe that’s why I can never walk past them without stopping.

So if you share that love — for drawings, textures, the alchemy of ink, graphite, or fiber — come follow this year’s paper trail.

Sculpting Light and Fragility

Paper isn’t just a surface here, it’s a body, a space, a world.

Philine Görnandt at SIGHT Galerie und Kunstberatung presents a large-scale paper sculpture that feels like stepping through a dream. Floral and surreal, her piece turns light into form and fragility into strength.

Just a few meters away, Julia Sossinka, one of the Discover a Talent awardees, treats paper as building material rather than backdrop. Her immersive installations use color and structure to create organic, flowing environments. Görnandt and Sossinka stand like two poles of the same idea — one ethereal and translucent, the other bold and tangible — showing just how far paper can go.

Between Tradition and Emotion

Lee Gun Hee at PS Center creates poetic collages with hanji, the traditional Korean handcrafted paper. Stitched and layered, these works feel like memories being pieced together — fragile, yet resilient. They radiate calm and pain in equal measure, and for me, they are among the fair’s most moving.

Nearby, Kyong Yu Park at Parcus Gallery brings the spirit of Korean calligraphy into dialogue with contemporary abstraction. Ink, gesture, and emptiness meet in perfect balance.
And PYCREATOR turns paper into history itself — his triptych, built from vintage German newspapers, bridges personal and collective memory, giving forgotten fragments a new life.

Classics and First Collectibles

For those who love the timeless charm of drawing, Mirijam Heiler’s graphite pencil drawing BIRDI (at Vijion Gallery) is pure devotion. Every line considered, every stroke alive. It’s one of those pieces that makes you fall back in love with the act of drawing itself.

From ARTHUS Gallery, Raymond Emile Waydelich reminds us that printmaking can still surprise — myth, humor, and history blend into works that sparkle with wit and warmth.

And for first-time collectors, there’s the quiet pleasure of Larisa Kliushkina’s ink washes or Anna Raba’s abstract watercolors — affordable, elegant, and soulful.

The Last Page

This fair proves that paper is more than a medium: it’s a whole language. It holds light, memory, and care in a way no other material can.

Follow the paper trail through Discovery Art Fair Frankfurt until November 9, 2025 — and see where it leads you.