Multilayered Paper Sculptures Capture Strength and Grace of Olympic Athletes

Raya Sader Bujana of Little Ray of Sunflower has a remarkable affinity for paper crafting. Known for her origami creations, Bujana has extended her skill set to include these incredible paper figurines modeled after Olympic athletes. Designed in collaboration with photographer Leo Garcia Mendez for a stock photo shoot to promote the upcoming Summer Games, Bujana's lifelike paper creations adopt recognizable poses from each of the Olympic sports that they represent.

Bujana made use of her experiences as a trained architect in order to create each of the perfectly proportioned paper creations. The curvature of the miniature bodies are made with the same serial plane techniques she employs for landscape sketches. Each figure was then digitized to establish the correct posture, and then all the pieces were cut and assembled with tiny 3mm separators. Some pieces took up to 150 sheets of paper and 500 separators to complete!

Despite the labor and time-commitment, Bujana found the whole project incredibly satisfying. As she explains: “The whole concept of this design was to express movement using paper. The added texture, light and volume that the technique provides reinforces the fluidity of the pieces.” Her paper creations flawlessly capture the power and grace of the trained athletes they mimic.

Raya Sader Bujana: Instagram | Etsy
Leo Garca Mendez: Website | Instagram
via [Colossal]

All images by Leo Garca Mendez.

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