Larisa Semke Design Engineer · Paper Artist
I construct paper art. What begins as a hand sketch becomes a three-dimensional relief.
My works grow out of geometry and calculation – from the union of technical precision and creative expression.
From Engineering to Folding
Engineering as an Artistic Method
My path to art runs through technology. As a mechanical design engineer, I learned to design complex assemblies, break them down into their components and represent them with dimensions on manufacturing drawings. This very method underlies every one of my works.
I design my forms with 3D CAD software, just as I would construct a machine part. From the virtual body I calculate the unfolding: the flat cutting pattern that fully describes a spatial form. What is the blueprint of a machine part in engineering becomes the foundation of a wall relief in my hands.
Paper is the ideal material for this: precise enough to render a calculated fold exactly, and at the same time flexible enough to form spatial bodies from a flat surface.
Larigami
Larigami combines my first name, Larisa, with Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Classical Origami works from a single sheet: no cutting, no gluing. Larigami keeps the folding but goes further: hundreds of geometrically constructed modules assemble not into figures, but into abstract three-dimensional wall sculptures.
Every work thrives on the interaction between light and shadow. Hundreds of folded bodies form patterns and textures whose effect shifts with the viewer’s position: a precise grid up close, a moving surface from a distance.
A flat sheet of paper carries the blueprint of a spatial body within it.
From Design to Relief
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Construction
Every form begins on the computer. Using CAD software, I construct the geometric bodies and derive their unfoldings as dimensionally accurate cutting patterns.
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Cutting & Folding
The cutting patterns are cut out of paper and folded by hand along the calculated edges. Each body is glued into a precise individual part.
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Composition
Step by step, I assemble the many individual parts into a relief, until simple geometric bodies become a complex, coherent whole.
