Читать книгу New Expressions in Origami Art - Meher McArthur - Страница 15
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IN THE ORIGAMI SCULPTURE OF TOMOKO FUSE
Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising
Tomoko Fuse (b.1951) occupies a unique position in Japan’s origami community. Since the mid-twentieth century when origami started to become a worldwide phenomenon, the origami community in Japan (and elsewhere) has been dominated by male designers, folders and writers. Despite this gender imbalance, for over thirty years Fuse has quietly and modestly gained considerable respect in Japan and throughout the world as a designer of a multitude of modular creations, including boxes and containers, kusudama, paper toys, masks, and polyhedra and other geometric objects. She is also one of the most prolific origami authors in the world, having published some 100 instructional origami books, many of which have been translated into English, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Korean. As an origami artist, Fuse’s designs have also evolved over the past couple of decades, from ornate boxes, toys and modular forms into sophisticated works of two- and three-dimensional sculptures that have been displayed in museum exhibitions and at art galleries around the world. Apparent in her recent sculptures, tessellations and installation work is not only her mastery of an array of complex folding techniques but also a uniquely gentle approach to geometry.
Fuse was born in Niigata in northern Japan and now lives with her husband Taro Toriumi, a respected woodblock print maker and etcher, in a hillside village in rural Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Fuse first learned origami while in hospital as a child, and her first model was a nurse’s hat. When she was nineteen years old, she studied for two and a half years with Toyoaki Kawai, a modern origami master who published many origami design books from the 1960s through the 1980s. Several years later, in 1981, Fuse published the first of her own origami instruction books, many of which focus on modular origami, a type of origami in which multiple modules are folded separately and assembled to create more complex, often geometric, forms. In the 1990s, Fuse became particularly well known for her origami kusudama—decorative balls that are made by connecting separate, usually flower-shaped, units. She has also designed and published many books on origami boxes as well as origami wreaths, rings and quilts, all of which are made by assembling origami modules into elaborate geometric patterns.
Spiral Towers
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2012, Takeo Mermaid Ripple paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Infinity Folds Installation
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2015, shoji paper, Schafhof Gallery, Friesing, Germany (Photo by Fumiko Thuerk)
Infinity Folds Installation (detail) with the artist
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2015, shoji paper, Schafhof Gallery, Friesing, Germany (Photo by Patsy Wang-Iveson)
In recent years, although she is still writing and publishing prolifically, Fuse has focused increasing attention on her artistic creations, and for over a decade now she has been showing her work in exhibitions in Europe and the United States. In 2004, on the invitation of fellow origami artists Paulo Mulatinho and Silke Shröder, Fuse was invited to Germany to present a solo exhibition of her work at the Bauhaus design school in Dessau. Here, she presented sculptural works, including shell forms, spirals and a number of her tessellation designs. Fuse’s spirals have been admired all around the world since the 1990s, when she first published her spiral designs. One of her most famous designs is Navel Shell, a spiraling nautilus shell created from a long triangle of paper that is folded in a rotational pattern to create an elegant low-relief sculpture. A slight variation is her work Ammonite, which features a more complex spiral pattern at its center. Over the years, she has evolved her shell forms into more three-dimensional works, some crossing over into the realm of abstraction.
One of the most intriguing forms that Fuse included in the Dessau exhibition and has featured in a number of exhibitions since then is a faceted cone that tapers upward like a geometric stalagmite reaching to the ceiling of the gallery. Folded in a range of heights in white, gray and shades of brown paper, these elegant Spiral Towers (from 1992) are grouped together and evoke a fantasy mountain range or majestic structures hewn from ice. In a variation of these single cones, Fuse folded single sheets of paper into more complex structures comprising four cones rising up from a single base and reaching outward in four directions, in a dynamic flight of fancy that balances geometry and grace. She named the works Biribiri (2012), after the Japanese onomatopaic word for an electrical discharge. As with her shell forms, the spiraling motion of the geometric surface patterning of these conical works suggests a mysterious and powerful internal energy that is pushing the structures upward and outward. They appear both mathematical and magical.
Whirlpool Spiral
Tomoko Fuse, Japan Designed 2001, this model folded 2012, Takeo OK Golden River paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Whirlpool Spiral
Tomoko Fuse, Japan Designed 2001, this model folded 2012, Takeo OK Golden River paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Whirlpool Spiral (inside view)
Tomoko Fuse, Japan, Designed 2001, this model folded 2012, Takeo OK Golden River paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Whirlpool Stars
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2012, washi paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Helices Form Trapezium
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2012, Takeo OK Golden River paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Navel Shell
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2012, washi paper (Photo by Herbert Bungartz, Freising. Published in SPIRAL: ORIGAMI | ART | DESIGN by Tomoko Fuse, Viereck Verlag)
Whirlpool Tessellation
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2007, washi paper (Photo by the artist)
Spiraling motion is also apparent in Fuse’s tessellation work, which she has recently been exploring in a range of scales, from small low-relief works to larger three-dimensional installations. In a tessellation, a pattern fills a plane with no overlaps or gaps, like decorative wall tiles. Origami tessellations are often created using pleats to connect together elements such as twist folds in a repeating fashion, often giving the appearance of woven paper. Fuse had been folding tessellations since she was young, but only started incorporating them into her art work around 2000. Since then she has created many exquisitely colored and textured works, such as Whirlpool Pattern 00810 (2003), which has the appearance of an intricately woven textile. Typically in tessellations, the modules that are repeated across the design are pointed and angular, but many of Fuse’s tessellations include curved-creased elements that create a swirling motion in the patterning. At the same time, however, by interlocking each of the curls in the design, she anchors the motion to create an overall pattern that is energized but also stable and balanced. For many of these dynamic designs, she employs exquisitely hand-colored papers with tonal gradations that evoke a gentle sunset or the new greens of spring. These tones add a softness and depth to these elaborately patterned works.
Infinity Folds Installation (detail)
Tomoko Fuse, Japan 2015, shoji paper, Schafhof Gallery, Friesing, Germany (Photo by Taro Toriumi)
