Artist Yulia Brodskaya pushes the boundaries of paper quilling with her dramatic portraits on black paper. Her impressive work uses modern quilling paper decoration techniques. Colored strips of paper vibrate against a dark background and show the myriad ways in which she manipulates materials. This gives a new level of appreciation for her hard work.

For years, Brodskaya was quick to choose a light background for her papercraft. “It rarely even crossed my mind that I should choose any color other than white,” she tells. The dark-colored paper presents a unique challenge for an artist.

Brodskaya created an abundance of contrast for the portraits on black paper. To do this, she incorporated large, tightly coiled circles for pops of color, strips that were packed together to mimic brush strokes, and accents of light-colored paper pasted flat onto the background.