Ilan Garibi – An Artist Exploring Unusual Folding Surfaces – Leyla Torres

A Conversation with Ilan Garibi – An Excerpt

On Thursday, August 31, 2023, there was a live Interview with origami artist, sculptor, jewelry maker, educator, and origami promoter, Ilan Garibi. This event was an included benefit for members of Origamigos, the Origami Spirit membership.

Some of the topics touched during the complete interview included a discussion of …

Origami in large-scale models made from non-traditional materials including metal, wood, and glass.
Origami tesselations as a design theme in the creation of jewelry.
The technique of folding metal in jewelry-making.
His role as an author of many books with a specific focus on the recent title: Origami for Teachers.

In the excerpt, Ilan speaks with great enthusiasm about the value of practicing origami to keep us young.

Ilan Garibi is a husband, father to a son and daughter, and a prolific and inspired Origami artist from Binyamina, Israel. He started folding Origami at age 11 and became an origami designer and creator at age 42. During his origami career, he has designed over 200 origami models which have been mostly tessellations and modular origami.

Founder and CEO of Origamisrael, the major group of origami artists in Israel, Ilan teaches Origami to (Industrial) Designers at HIT, The Holon Institute of Technology in the city of Holon south of Tel Aviv, Israel.

A tireless promoter of origami, Ilan is an organizer of the popular Origami World Marathon, and the founder of the International Convention for Origami Creators (Lyon-2017, Zaragoza-2020, Bogotá-2023).

For the complete interview…

Click to Join Origamigos

“After more than 30 years of diagram-folding, a spark of creativity was aflame in me. I have started to design new models, patterns, objects, and sculptures all within the restrictions of the pure origami rules – no glue, no cuts, just folds, and creases” ~Ilan Garibi

Like many origami designers, Ilan worked exclusively with paper, until he met Gal Gaon, a gallery owner and architect. Joining the Gal Gaon Gallery gave Illan the opportunity to explore new design concepts and non-traditional materials, especially those that by their inherent material quality defied folding. Such materials include silver, leather, iron, steel, wood, glass, and ceramic.

Developing an understanding of these materials, their properties, and their potential, Ilan has designed lamps, vases, tables, and works of art, primarily working with mirrored stainless steel and painted iron. Some of his creations have been shown at MIART, the international modern and contemporary art fair in Milan in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Ilan has also exhibited at FRESH PAINT, Israel’s art & design fair in Tel Aviv from 2012 – 2015, and 2019.

Currently, Ilan is designing and making jewelry using metal, wood, and paper. He works on a small scale producing a unique collection of folded rings, pendants, and bracelets (website linked below).