Jasmine Dowling combines photography, collage and motion to create tactile worlds for beauty brands

Like a lot of things today, Jasmine Dowling’s intricate motion work can only be interacted with in the digital world, but somehow that doesn’t make it feel any less tactile. A feast for the eyes, her slow, thoughtful paper folds and clever collages create immersive visual stories for beauty brands like Aesop, Longchamp, Armani Beauty and Tom Ford. “I have always been drawn to the beauty and accessory space when it comes to subject matter,” she says. “I find myself instantly inspired by the colour, form, textures and storytelling that surrounds them.”

Jasmine’s creative process often starts with photography, although she’s never too attached to the initial images, seeing them as a raw material to print, cut, paste and fold into new imaginings. What seems to tie together every project is her dedication to the handmade touch, no matter how many frames it takes to animate – her chequerboard short for Longchamp a particularly laborious delight. “For me, adding that created by-hand element adds so much life to the work, and that feels essential during the rise of artwork being created by AI,” she shares.

When it comes to inspiration, Jasmine finds a lot of her ideas at her desk, playing with a messy range of materials and “experimenting with different physical forms” without constraints. This is something she’s carried on quite easily from being a kid: “I love looking back at crafts I did as a child and seeing how I could adapt that process to create something that feels modern”, she says. As shown in her folded fortune tellers, reminiscent of school playground games, or pencil play, Jasmine is always aiming to hit that sense of nostalgia in her work.