Folding of paper-like materials exists in many cultures in Europe, Asia and the Americas. However, the deepest roots of the folding arts arise from within the Japanese folding tradition, and that is why most of us use the Japanese word “origami” to describe what we do. Those of us who do use the word “origami” recognize that it is a relatively recent term and an imperfect fit to the modern practice. The important thing is not the word: the important thing is what the various expressions of the art share with one another. Origami is a conservative art, in which material is neither added nor removed, but transformed. This transformation establishes a thread of continuity and integrity that connects the simplicity of the starting shape—commonly one or more squares or rectangles—with the folded form, be it representational or abstract. The finished form triggers our perceptions and evokes images and emotions, but that thread of continuity binds our experience of the finished work to the pristine initial shape. In the artist’s mind, there was an idea and a sheet of paper before any folding took place. In the finished work, the sheet of paper remains continuous and uninterrupted as it began, but with the artist’s concept now layered within the folds.
We transform via folding, but even folding is to be taken broadly. Folding is creasing, bending, curving, scoring, by hand, by fingernail, by folding bone, even by blade and laser. Folding preserves the paper’s initial shape, but at the microscopic level it imparts permanent change: breaking fibers, infinitesimally delaminating layers, and, if the technique of wet folding is applied, rearranging hydrogen bonds between adjacent polymeric strands. Folding can be mechanically precise, formed according to artistic judgment, or, in the case of “crumple” folding, formed as the realization of a stochastic process. However folds are created, they ultimately join together with the mechanical properties of the paper—stiffness, springiness, relaxation—and the intricacies of human perception in the observer to create a connection. Origami is about connections: between the fibers of the paper or folding medium, between the creases that join into intricate networks, but most of all between the artist and the observer of the finished work. As you explore the works in this book, I encourage you to examine the connections within the works displayed, both explicit and implied, and establish your own connections with this fascinating art.
ROBERT J. LANG
origami artist/consultant, physicist and author of Origami Design Secrets
INTRODUCTION
Dwarf
Eric Joisel, France 2003, paper (Photo courtesy of the artist’s family)
Origami—the Japanese art of paper folding—has become so popular that it is now being practiced all around the world, and not only by children but by many highly innovative artists. Since the 1950s, when Japanese origami artist Akira Yoshizawa began using wet folding to model original, realistic forms, artists all over the world have been inspired to push the boundaries of paper folding. Some began their artistic journey with traditional origami and have found ways to fold increasingly complex and sculptural forms, while others were sculptors who discovered that folding paper presented them with a whole new world of possibilities. The result has been the emergence of a unique type of sculptural art that begins in two dimensions and ends in three.
By experimenting with new techniques such as wet folding, curved creasing and tessellations, and using a wide variety of papers, artists from all over the world have been following their own aesthetic, poetic and political inclinations, elevating paper folding into a sophisticated global art form that now comprises many different styles and genres. Although folded birds, insects and animals remain a key element in this evolution, origami art now includes works of abstract sculpture, large-scale installations, street art and conceptual works that express contemporary social, political and aesthetic ideas. Origami has become a multifaceted method of artistic expression.
The origami artists featured here are some of the most innovative working today (save for Eric Joisel, recently deceased, but whose spirit is still felt strongly). They have been vigorously pushing the boundaries of origami in new directions in terms of style, scale, materials, subject and concept. Fueled by their boundless imagination and formed with remarkable skill, their origami creations are increasing in size, with larger single sheets or multiple modules being assembled into large-scale sculptures that blend geometry and grace. They are creasing and crumpling paper to create fantastic new worlds inhabited by lifelike organisms. They are folding sheets of paper along curved lines so that they twist and swirl in unexpected directions. They are combining their folded paper creations with other media, even encasing them inside vessels of glass. They are folding paper as a way of expressing their concerns about religious, social and political issues. Now, we are not only awed by the intricacy of their folding and the beauty of their folded forms, but we are also moved by the power of the message contained in the work.
The artists featured in this book are from eleven different countries on four continents. Many of them know, and have been inspired by each other. Some have been active in the origami community for years, while others have only recently discovered the community of other paper folders out there. Some are inspired solely by aesthetics, while others use their art to make a political or social point. What they share is a place in an important moment in the history of origami, when what was once considered Japanese has become truly global and what was once only seen as a craft is being recognized as an art form—and one with infinite modes of expression.
MEHER MCARTHUR
independent Asian art curator, educator and co-author of Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami
of molecules and masks
THE TESSELLATED PORTRAITS OF JOEL COOPER
Photo by Jane Araújo
Since the year 2000, a number of origami artists have been exploring the artistic potential of tessellation, a series of forms that are repeated to create a pattern that fills a plane with no gaps or overlaps. The term derives from the Latin word tessera, the name for the individual tiles used to make mosaics. In origami tessellations, pleats are used to connect “molecules,” such as twist folds, together in a repeating fashion. Japanese origami artist Shuzo Fujimoto first explored the technique systematically in the 1960s, leaving dozens of patterns that established the genre among origami enthusiasts. In the United States around the same time, artist and computer scientist Ron Resch also patented some tessellation patterns, but it took until the 1980s for his work to became known in the origami community. Now, origami artists throughout the world are using tessellation to create spectacular works of 2-D, relief and 3-D paper sculpture. Most of these are abstract and geometric in their patterning and formations. However, American artist Joel Cooper (b.1970) has discovered that he can employ the technique to create highly detailed and expressive masks portraying historical and imaginary figures.
Cooper was born in San Francisco but grew up in Kansas, where he lives today. When he was about eight years old he first became interested in origami, devouring the first book that his parents bought for him on the subject. Although he was also interested in math and science, he decided to major in Fine Arts at college, studying oil painting, bronze casting, stone carving, ceramics and other traditional media, while continuing origami as a hobby on the side. In 2000, many years after he graduated, he was browsing websites on geometry and discovered origami tessellations. As he investigated tessellation techniques, he found what had been missing for him in the traditional art forms he had studied