Meenakshi Mukerji

“Poinsettia Floral Ball”

Simple origami paper known as Kami, 2003.



The Poinsettia Floral Ball is based on an underlying icosahedron as well as a dodecahedron. There are 12 floral faces arranged in a dodecahedral symmetry and 20 triangle-like holes arranged in an icosahedral symmetry. Each of the 30 units that comprise the model can be imagined to be lying along the edges of an icosahedron with each unit contributing to 2 petals belonging to 2 adjacent flowers.

Meenakshi Mukerji, Software engineer turned origami artist and published author.

"The Poinsettia Floral Ball is origami art with icosahedral/dodecahedral symmetry and it is the cover model of my recent book Marvelous Modular Origami published by A K Peters Limited. It is origami in pure form which means there is no cut or glue. Thirty identical origami units are interlocked together solely by origami methods to form the models, taking about three hours to make.

The model is a glaring example of how something so mathematical can also be so visually appealing and hence be of interest to both mathematicians
and artists. A mathematician would ponder the symmetry and the underlying polyhedron of the model whereas an artist would simply devour the beauty. As an engineer, the symmetry in polyhedra has never ceased to be of interest to me and hence all my origami work is based on polyhedra where my math and art skills meet."

http://www.origamee.net

my new book: "Marvelous Modular Origami", ISBN 978-1568813165

Another work by the artist

“Daisy Dodecahedron”

Holographic craft paper, 2004.



As the name implies, the Daisy Dodecahedron is a dodecahedron with a daisy-like pattern on each of the twelve faces. The model is made up of thirty units with each unit lying along an edge of a dodecahedron. The daisy pattern is made of exposed reverse side of the paper used. Three colors are distributed evenly in such a way that all three colors meet at each vertex and no two adjacent edges are of the same color. This color distribution is an interesting and challenging mathematical problem.