This amazing origami sculpture was created simply by folding just one piece of paper, it may be hard to believe but it involved no cutting of the paper or the use of any glue. Taking 3 months to plan, prepare and construct, Japanese artist Juho Könkkölä's newest piece is a phenomenal spectacle that is a testament to his ingenuity and skill and an example of the true brilliance that can be produce through the medium of paper.
The warrior is constructed from a square 95cm piece of rice-paper which the artist first creased and then folded to produce the final sculpture. The warrior comes with a traditional samurai sword and armour, which is highly detailed and historically accurate. The warrior also adorns a kabuto, the traditional helmet worn by samurai warriors in medieval Japan.
Könkkölä told My Modern Met:
"I got the idea for the character from my previous origami samurai warrior, which I did almost a year ago. The artwork was a success on its own, it pushed my style in a direction that I didn't expect, but I knew it was something that needed to be explored more. But it still left me thinking that I could fold a better samurai."
He added:
"I used the previous samurai as my starting point and I began to redesign its features one by one. I ended up redesigning all the parts, and I constantly found new ways to add more detail to the character. The pre-creased paper has [a] huge amount of folds, and even after folding those there is still a lot of work before it is finished. You can see how each of the parts develop in the folding process."
On his Instagram, Könkkölä displays bit by bit how the warrior was constructed using just the one piece of paper.
A post shared by Juho Könkkölä (@jkonkkola_origami)
The Japanese art of origami goes back at least 400 years to the 'Edo period' and has been practised by artisans ever since. While many countries, completely unconnected to each other, have used paper-folding as an artistic practice, such as 'napkin-folding in 17th and 18th century Europe, it was in Japan that the skill becomes most notable. Today millions of people all across the world learn and take part in paper-folding. The name 'origami' itself comes from the Japanese word 'ori' meaning 'folding', and 'kami' meaning 'paper'.
Samurai warriors existed in Japan from the 12th century to around the 1870s. They were made up of hereditary military nobility and senior sections of Japanese society, their job was to often enforce the will of local landlords and were bound by a strict code of conduct and chivalry.
h/t: My Modern Met
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