Outside Inspiration: Triangles Emerging

I am really pushing the idea of what a triangle is in today’s offering, but I had to think up some excuse and quick to share this incredible work with you. This piece you see below is all paper. Intricate, perfectly cut and layered sheets of paper. Check out the detail shot below it before I go on to explain what this has to do with triangles.

This paper art is laser cut and then meticulously assembled by Eric Standley. It relates to triangles because there are many triangular shapes and suggestions of triangles, but no actual triangles that I could find. All these triangles emerge from the overlapping of other shapes, primarily circles and squares. Since he creates these in primarily circular, mandala like designs, it’s no wonder triangles are emerging everywhere. What is a cut up circle but a bunch of pie slices, which are essentially triangles. Triangles are also natural in a circle when you have overlapping circles equidistant from the outside edge. Squares also create triangles in some of his pieces for a similar reason, although, triangles aren’t always the result when squares overlap. Sometimes you just get more squares.

That is all to say that you can create multiple shapes in a piece by overlapping larger shapes. Its nothing fancy, but the resulting intricacies you create can make a piece look far more involved than it might be. In the case of these paper sculptures, they are already very intricate to start with but more so for this approach.

I found Eric’s work on a site called Web Odysseyum. The images on this page of the site will give you a much closer look at his work than his website, but visit them both if you are as amazed at this as I am.

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