Specializing in the Japanese art form of paper architecture, Amsterdam-based artist Ingrid Siliakus creates incredibly detailed architectural masterpieces from single pieces of paper. In order to achieve a final result with the complexity and beauty that she intends, Siliakus may produce anywhere from 20 to over 30 prototypes: “Paper architecture does not bare haste, it is its enemy,” she says. “One moment of loss of concentration can lead to failure of a piece.”
She produces both abstract works and architectural pieces, for which she finds inspiration in M.C. Escher and Gaudi respectively. Siliakus takes care in the craft and finds herself navigating an ever-evolving and always-demanding relationship with paper: “Working with paper forces me to be humble, since this medium has a character of its own that asks for cooperation… Working with paper the way I do, namely by means of cutting and folding creating paper structures, asks me to work with a meditative precision.”
While her work requires incredible accuracy and consistency, it is also a fundamentally creative task- she turns a flat and nondescript sheet of paper into an architectural marvel. She generates complexity out of simplicity. It is that sense of creation itself—imposing her vision onto the paper- that drives Siliakus’ love for the craft: “I experience an ultimate satisfaction at the moment when the paper, with a silenced sigh, surrenders and becomes a blade-sharp crease. The sound of the paper, which guides the surrendering, to me is incomparable.”
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Minneapolis-based artist and designer