Origami, the ancient Japanese art of folding paper, carries a fragile elegance in its precise folds. At the cusp of simplicity and complexity, origami has influenced creatives across disciplines and geographies; California-based engineer-turned-artist Mark Goudy is one of them. For the ceramicist, the craft became the origin for a striking new direction in his practice that gave way to the Origami series. With porcelain as the medium, Goudy replicates the language of folded paper, interweaving digital design, mathematics and traditional ceramic techniques. His pursuit culminates in an ensemble of luminous vessels that echo a timeless craft rooted in innovation. “I noticed how unglazed porcelain looks and feels like paper, with a similar texture and translucency,” Goudy tells STIR. “Starting with my digital porcelain work, I could see the possibilities to make porcelain vessels that consist of a series of creases with smooth surfaces folded in between, with the use of repetition and interpolation,” he adds.
Porcelain vessels with sharply folded surfaces and translucent forms
Image: Courtesy of Mark Goudy
The sculptural pieces feature a complex interplay of concave and convex folds
Image: Courtesy of Mark Goudy
After two decades in digital hardware engineering—a discipline based on accuracy, systems and invisible structures—Goudy started a career in ceramics. The tryst of an intent to experiment with the singular tactility of clay, armed with his technical background and problem-solving skills laid the groundwork for a new creative expression. As his practice evolved over the years, Goudy sculpted an oeuvre fuelled by the exploration of form and vacillating between art and science. His philosophy of "simplicity, with hidden complexity" is at the core of his minimalist style, the Origami series being a reflection of the idea. “A successful design has an organic feel because there are small variations built in it that move it away from a strictly geometric form, even if the viewer is not fully aware of them,” explains the contemporary artist.
Origami is the outcome of years of learning a combination of digital tools, such as Grasshopper and Rhino 3D. In place of the conventional wheel-throwing and hand-crafting process, the ceramic artist resorts to employing these platforms to create his porcelain vessels. The pieces are digitally modelled and 3D-printed as mother moulds, from which plaster slip-casting moulds are made. What appears are graceful, paper-like shapes with a subtle rhythm, flowing curves and meticulous creases. An impression of motion frozen in time is produced by the surfaces' concave folds set against smooth, convex planes. “I saw how digital tools could be used to make interesting new forms, as well as the moulds needed to produce them. I could construct arbitrarily curved mould division planes that exactly follow the lines of the form, with no undercuts,” Goudy expands.
The geometry of this vessel echoes the undulation of water Image: Courtesy of Mark Goudy
A top-down view of Goudy’s porcelain pieces Image: Courtesy of Mark Goudy
The series is an extension of the digital development that Goudy's body of work is rooted in. His technique pursues an equilibrium of construction and natural forms, coming through in his older hand-built, polished earthenware and the rhythmic, sine-wave-inspired Wave Form series. The transition to digital tools became an expansion rather than a departure, creating opportunities to bring abstract and intricate shapes to life. Every vessel starts as a conceptual drawing that is moulded using mathematical formulas and patterns before being turned into a tangible object using a number of painstakingly made moulds. This synergy of code and clay is what Goudy calls ‘mathematics in porcelain’—algorithmic logic made tangible and functional.
Goudy's Origami series is a subdued yet potent example of the potential of hybrid creations in a time when the segregations between craft, code and sculpture are becoming increasingly hazy. These shapes represent the meeting point of digital inventiveness, natural inspiration and material integrity; they do more than merely mimic folded paper. Goudy stays rooted in the joy and semantics of form even as he continues to experiment with new concepts using his developing toolkit. Through Origami, that language transforms into something that seems both ancient and completely new, revealing itself crease by crease, curve by curve.