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Sculptures by Polly Verity

About Polly

Exhibitions

Mujeres de Papel at the Origami Museum in Spain

Escuela Museo Origami Zaragoza (EMOZ)

Mujeres de Papel (more ...)
December 2016 - March 2017

Origami Universe, Taiwan

Chimei Museum, Taiwan

October 2016 - May 2017

Paper Creatures, Israel

Jaffa Port Gallery

Jaffa-Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel (more ...)
September 2016 - December 2017

End of Summer Exhibition

Waunifor Centre, Maesycrugiau

Waunifor End of Summer Art Exhibition (more ...)
August 2016
Origami Tesselations by Polly Verity at Gail Cahalan Gallery Rhode Island

Origami Tessellations

Gail Cahalan Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Part of group show of paper art
December 2009
Folding exhibtion at Sandusky Cultural Centre Ohio

Folding

Sandusky Cultural Center, Sandusky, Ohio, USA

Part of a group show of paper art at the Sandusky Cultural Center
April 2009
Papershapers exbition at Scion Installation LA

Papershapers

Scion Installation, Culver City, L.A. USA

Part of a group show of paper art curated by Giant Robot at Scion Installation L.A
April/May 2009
Chimerae wire and paper sculptures by Polly Verity at Comme des Garçons

Chimerae

Comme des Garçons, 17-18 Dover St London W1S 4LT

Miniature wire and paper sculptures of mythological creatures in Glass Domes Collector & Curator - Emma Hawkins
December 2007
Exhibition of Paper Folding, Oberlin, Ohio

Exhibition of Paper Folding

Oberlin, Ohio, USA

Part of group show in Oberlin
March 2007
Wireframed farting cow by Polly Verity in Edinburgh Cowgate

Wire framed Cow

Cowgate, Edinburgh

Wire framed Cow Leaping through a building in the Cowgate, Edinburgh Almost life-size cow fashioned in half so that the front comes through one side of the building and her back quarters the other. She still resides there above The Caves and The Rowen Tree. (more ...)
February 14th - March 14th 2007
Harpy wire and paper sculpture by Polly Verity. Exhibition at Comme des Garçons

h y b r i d s

Comme des Garçons, 17-18 Dover St London W1S 4LT

Miniature wire and paper sculptures of mythological creatures in Glass Domes Alongside miniature costumes by Anna Cocciadiferro. Collector & Curator - Emma Hawkins
August 2006
Wire Paper Bend Fold exhibition by Polly Verity

Wire and Paper, Bend and Fold

Howden Park Centre, Livingston, West Lothian

Birds in glass cases with folded paper backdrops
July 1st - August 9th 2005
Wire frame sketches by paper sculpture artist Polly Verity for Red Door Gallery exhibition Edinburgh

Wire Frame Sketches

Red Door Gallery, Edinburgh

September 2003 to present
Wire frame exhibition by paper sculpture artist Polly Verity at Out of the Blue Edinburgh

Wire Frame

Out of the Blue, Edinburgh

Festival August 2003

Other Work

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PAPER

Daughter of artists, Polly Verity grew up in an environment where there were plenty of art materials to hand and she was encouraged to experiment. Her step-grandfather, Eric de Mare had written a book “Your Book of Paperfolding” in the 1960s. Later on, when she was about 8, he gave her a copy. This inspired a journey in paper, the idea that you could transform a flat sheet into three dimensions was very exciting. She has been experimenting with paper ever since.

Whereas origami has been practiced for hundreds of years, a pure abstract tessellated form is relatively recent with the Bauhaus first experimenting in 1920’s. Polly’s paper folding designs follow this more recent investigation and because there were at that time no books written on the subject, she has been helped along the way by some very brilliant friends in the origami world.

In the late noughties Polly happened upon something that she likens to a spontaneous university of geometric origami. These were halcyon days of folding and discovery. A small pocket of like-minded folders from all over the world (Japan, America, Brasil, Europe etc) came together on the internet to share images of their folds and ideas. It felt like a specialised University course of tessellations and corrugations forged in real time, as it went along, by its students. This time led on to Polly attending the Origami Convention in New York (OUSA) for a couple of years running where she was lucky to meet and share ideas with international folders from around the world who are at the top of their class. Polly’s folds are mainly abstract geometric repeat patterns, each created just by folding a sheet (no cuts). There is an infinite variety of forms that can arise from this method and Polly chooses folds that are particularly photogenic and striking due to the dramatic effects that are created when light (particularly a side, raking light) hits one of the pieces. Polly usually works in a white paper so there are no distractions for the eye in the medium itself and the white paper shows off the sharp form to best advantage.

The process is as follows:
The paper fold is initially eased into shape by hand onto a small piece of paper. Then the paper is opened out and the lines carefully, mathematically transcribed into a computer line drawing. Once this drawing is refined and tested and with the repeat tessellation computed, the line data is sent to a desktop cutter that cuts very slightly into the paper in order to score it. The paper is then folded by hand along these scores. Each sculpture is made from one sheet of paper with no cuts or glue.

Some of the designs are used for dresses, the artist creates paper dresses that due to the nature of the paper, can usually only be worn once. Polly has created paper dresses for weddings, performance and for photo-shoots.

Recent developments have seen the artist/designer begin to work with curved folds especially curve fold repeat patterns. This has produced some surprising and exciting results.

 

WIRE

In the early 90s Polly became self-trained in 3D computer modelling. This involves a process whereby a virtual 3D wireframe is used as the basis for the 3D models. For the mythological creatures, she thought of using wireframe in the same way but in real-life. Manipulating materials in a hands-on way was very refreshing. “You have to be observant all the time, each line is just as important as another. Like computer lines, the wire is relatively easy to “undo” if I get something wrong. I mostly get my inspiration from the spirit of the thing that I am making. If I am working on a creature then I have many views and images as well as sketches to work from but I chose images that really reverberate on both a guttural and other-worldly level”. Early 80s computer graphics are her influences such as Steven Lisberger’s movie Tron and David Braben and Ian Bell’s 3D wireframe game Elite. Very simple visual information is all that is necessary and so the intension is to pare down as much as possible to the essentials. In the early 80s it was essential to get the code as tight as possible to save precious memory and this aesthetic has been taken on board in real wireframe. The structure is cold formed from pure silver wire by carefully wrapping wire around itself and the elements built up to describe the external contours like a delicate exoskeleton, then fine paper is applied to create a taut translucent skin. This is a technique that Polly devised herself.

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