Jennifer Tran

Jennifer Tran

Alumni

Jennifer Tran completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts / Bachelor of Education double degree at UNSW Art & Design.  

Having been a source of inspiration to artists for centuries, flowers have once again provided a rich foundation for Sydney-based creative practitioner, Jennifer Tran. Her interest in the structure, form, and color of flowering plantlife was not piqued until after graduation when she found herself with time to quietly observe the world around her. Flowers attracted her attention for their beauty, variation, and unexpected complexity.

In addition to the acquisition of skills in painting, drawing, and the process of imparting knowledge within a visual context, Jennifer has also always been interested in crafting. It has offered her a way to unwind in a constructive, hands-on manner. The jump between looking at flowers in a garden and constructing paper copies was natural and seamless.

Jennifer has now given years to the perfection of paper gardenias, peonies, hydrangeas, water lilies, orchids, waratah, bottlebrush, and roses. She quite righty calls herself a flowersmith.   

Her success in being able to create objects of beauty from paper is mirrored by the success of her business, Papetal. Jennifer’s busy schedule entails workshops at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art and mega Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, as well as online tutorials. She also creates flower displays and wearable sculptural works that have featured in the National Sculpture Magazine of China, Maker’s Magazine (Canada), The Design Files, Home Beautiful, and InsideOut magazine (Australia).  

In early 2016, she was named by Design*Sponge as a top paper flower artist to follow, and in 2017 her first book, Flowersmith, was published by Hardie Grant. She has also caught the eye of New York Times Art Director, Richard Aloisio, who says, “With just some paper and mundane tools, Jennifer is able to create intensely beautiful works of art.”

Other clients of Jennifer’s include, Hermes, kikki.K, Etsy, and Mud Australia.