News: Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

Richard Sweeney is an incredible artist whose body of work consists mainly of sculptures made from paper. His art is often related to origami, and much of his work is related to geometrical forms. I personally really love his modular forms in paper. Many of them are based off of the platonic solids, which have been discussed in previous posts this week. Below are a small number of his sculptures, which are very geometric in nature.

This first is based off the icosahedron; the bases of the 20 curved forms are the trianglular faces: 

Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

This one is based off the dodecahedron; the bases of the 12 curved forms are the pentagonal faces:

Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

Tetrahedron: 

Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

 Octahedron:

Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

A different model based off of the icosahedron:

Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: The Curved Geometric Paper Sculptures of Richard Sweeney

What I find really amazing about these is how the curved folds combined with the geometric shapes create this feeling of an organic alien world. I've actually tried to recreate his work and have had a tiny bit of success. These are my versions on the community corkboard.

Does anything in this post inspire you? Would you like to know how to make these amazing objects? If so, let me know in the comments. Perhaps, if there is enough interest, I'll approach the artist and see if he would allow me to share how to make them.

Have a great weekend and if you create any math related art, please share with all of us on the corkboard.  I hope to share community content in a post on Monday.

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7 Comments

Very beautiful. I'd love to see a How-To.

A How-To video would be great!

I'll try and contact the artist and see if he'll let me share. I personally know how to make the two icosahedra and the dodecahedra...but I really don't feel like I can share how to do them without the artists permission. I'll email him soon and see what he says.

Beautiful designs - just spent the afternoon making an octahedral version, great idea for modular origami. will post a picture once I find out how - but will not post any method till Cory has given ok from artist

I emailed Mr. Sweeney. Keep your fingers crossed!

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