Caroline Byrne's bold and colourful installation for Self Space is a papercraft triumph

Caroline Byrne is an Irish installation and display artist based in London, known for her distinctive hand-crafted installations and sculptural art. She delights in making large-scale work that alters the atmosphere of an environment, creating a fantastical reality with humble and familiar materials. And her latest project, a partnership with Canon, breaks further new ground for the artist.

Canon teamed up with Caroline to create a unique art installation for a special cause. She chose Self Space in Shoreditch, London, which describes itself as the world's first on-demand mental health service on the high street.

To help her out, Canon provided her with the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300; a high quality, A3+ printer with a 13-inch printing width, designed to deliver premium output on both glossy and matte media.

This prompted Caroline to go beyond her usual process of using cut pieces of paper to create the detailing of her plant sculptures and instead use the printer to create the detail and visual textures for this jaw-dropping installation.

There are four sculptures in total – two of which appear in the window of the building, at 69 Rivington Street, with the other two dotted around the space. They're remarkably detailed, bursting with colour and, quite frankly, unlike anything we've seen before.

So what was her inspiration? Caroline explains that the concept for the installation was spurred by how she likes to unwind. "When I want to clear my head, I'll go for a walk in nature," she says. "This is when I see things differently and notice details that I normally rush by on my everyday commute. I'll see a new leaf ready to unfurl, for example, and might be inspired to take a photo I can later reference in my work.

"So it's nice to take a little bit of that personal self-care and bring that into a space like this. It's hopefully taking people out of their own mind for a minute to see something unexpected, inspired by the outdoors."

And using the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 printer on the project also took her outside of her normal creative process, giving her a fresh perspective on her work. "Normally, all my leaves are made of layers of cut paper," Caroline says. "Whereas in this case, it was printed, so it was more photographic as opposed to graphic. It was a different way of working for me, and it was nice to be challenged."

The premium quality of the printer's output, meanwhile, made it easy to create the kind of material she needed to complete the piece to her exacting standards. Caroline also used Canon's Professional Print & Layout software to streamline the entire printing process, ensuring minimum paper waste as well as accurate replications of the colourful leaves.

"I thought the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 printer was great," Caroline says. "What was most beneficial to me was the size of the printer. It's an A3+ printer, so the maximum print size is larger than A3. That was really helpful in terms of making things to scale. Plus, the print quality was amazing for the gradients that I was doing, and I was blown away by the sophistication of the colour reproduction. So I'm really happy with how it all turned out. I've seen people in the street walking past and taking pictures, and it's amazing to see those reactions."

You can learn more about Caroline's creative process and background in our exclusive interview where she describes her paper houseplants and sculptures as "loud, proud, and outspoken". Discover more of her creations at Brazen Botany.