Benjamin Wieler

This began as an experiment; to make an origami paper collage in a gradient of colour using materials I had available to hand. Sensing I needed to make this bigger, I ordered more paper, purchasing the last pack of gold foil from my supplier. More paper on back order from Japan, just waiting for a container to ship.

So my supplies were precious! My layout wasn’t using the entire sheet of paper, so I challenged myself to make this a zero waste project, using every last off-cut. A square sheet of gold foil paper is painted with watercolour, cut into squares, half-squares, smaller squares, thick strips, & thin strips, manipulated into shape with folds & curls before being arranged into their colour gradients.

The largest artwork, titled “Thirteen Weeks of Summer,” is not a literal diary account of the state of the weather for each day of the season, but an abstract fantasy of summer idylls as we would like them to be, colourful surroundings with a warm golden glow. This set the theme for the remaining five works in the series, all based on weather related phenomena.