Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Naoki Onogawa

Japanese artist Naoki Onogawa has been fascinated with the traditional art of origami since he was a child.

 

Now, he incorporates the popular craft into his own artwork.

Using nothing more than his hands, the artist folds hundreds of tiny origami cranes that are small enough to fit on the tip of his finger.

 

Inspired by the legend of the 1000 cranes and the story of Sadako Sasaki, Onogawa folds hundreds of miniature origami cranes that later become bonsai trees of various colors and styles.

Those minuscule paper creatures are used as leaves on the delicate branches of his asymmetrical tree-like sculptures.

 

“Origami cranes sometimes feel like a solitary ceremony filled with prayers, entrusting the feeling of having nowhere to go, and going back and forth to places other than this world,” Onogawa explains.

“I can’t express it well in words, but the paper cranes I’m folding up now may be the result of such ‘prayers’.”

 

“By layering paper cranes on the threads and blessings of nature and such things and incorporating them into my work, I have created a “place” for paper cranes.”

 

More of Naoki Onogawa’s inspirational work can be found at https://naoki-onogawa.com.