Papercraft Research

Out of the given papercraft artists, the one that jumped out to me the most was Matthew Shlian and his work. Shlian's work intrigues me more than any of the others because if is easily the most design-oriented. it isn't trying to tell a concise story or be representational of things from the real world. It is purely aesthetics. Because of this I believe that it is the most innovative art from this group of papercrafters. That would be because while all the other works mimic other artistic media, Matthew's works embrace the structural and geometric properties of paper. Things where paper really is the best, most efficient material to be using for the job.

Shlian is described as bridging the gap between art and engineering. This is the exact kind of art that I am most interested in and is similar to what I plan on producing in my own future. Like he says about himself in the short video Here, I have always had a more mathematical, mechanic view on life and the things I produce. For me careful calculation can hold as much beauty as the greatest paintings from throughout history. This idea is most prominently shown off in the piece by Matthew Shlian shown below.

Something about the slow twist seen throughout the piece draws my attention to how much of a blast this would have been to model in a CAD program to begin with. The piece looks very unnatural and looks as if it was created solely by an algorithm. My eye has always been attracted to things like this. When hand work by man can be done to such a precise degree that others mistake it for the work of a computer. I don't know what that says about me but then again I don't need to. Inspiration-wise Matthew's work leads me down a rabbit hole of designs that may have functional applications. When I first saw the above piece I imagined how breath-taking it would be as an architectural texture; something possibly used as the shape of an exterior wall of a certain museum or art gallery. So that is what Shlian's work mostly inspires in me, design that can be weaponized with real-world functionality. Whether it is for something as simple as a book cover or something as complex as an architectural exterior, designs such as these will always hold a special place in my heart and mind.