Joy Hsiao

Mathematics Teacher and Program Chair
Stuyvesant High School
New York, USA

As I learn new origami models, I often use mathematics to calculate various measures to help me understand each model better. I also use an online graphing tool to sketch crease patterns. Through these activities, both mathematics and art are created and exercised on multiple levels and in multiple forms. There is art in the physical folding, in the mathematical problem posing and problem solving, and in the final origami model.

Four Fish
Four Fish
30 x 30 x 1 cm
Paper
2017

This is a collage of origami tessellations. In the process of folding the Star Puff (fish eyes) designed by Ralf Konrad, one is treated to a series of beautiful patterns and tessellations. This artwork presents all these different stages of patterns and tilings at once. It pays tribute to M. C. Escher's fish tessellations and presents a realized struggle from 2D to 3D which was often just an illusion in Escher's work.