Goran Konjevod

Statement

I have been creating abstract sculptures and low-relief wall pieces by folding paper for over 20 years. I tend to use the properties of the various papers in guiding my work, for example thickness and resistance to folding helps me make my work more three-dimensional. I often color the paper I work with, mostly using encaustic wax. I have been exploring the various ways to use pleating in my work, from the organic three-dimensional forms to using the paper hidden in the pleats to allow subsequent sculpting of the pleated sheet, to creating abstract landscapes by using the interaction of folds and color.

Artworks

A vessel formed by weaving hand-cut strips of Japanese paper (Awagami thick unryu). One set of strips is natural, the other was painted with encaustic wax. The surface of the vessel is part of the Sudanese Möbius strip. A python program was used to generate the mesh and divide it into strips oriented along the two parameter space axes. A Blender plug-in was then used to flatten each piece for printing. The pieces were cut by hand, tracing each one over a printout, and assembled with the help of glue. This is my first attempt at weaving with paper (as opposed to simulating woven patterns by folding uncut sheets).

An abstract composition of pleats folded form a sheet of Japanese paper that I first dyed to create a gradation of color from white to blue. I started by folding pleats on a square grid, then rearranged some pleat intersections to create various interlacing patterns. All folds were axis-aligned and any visible twisting or rotations are due only to the interaction of the pleat interlacing and the tendency of the pleats to open slightly where not prevented from doing so by other folds.