Join origami artist Bernie Peyton in an exploration of science and art
August 21, 2012 •
Bernie Peyton is a bear biologist with a passion for paper, and he is coming to UCOP to share some of that passion on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 12 to 1 p.m. in Franklin Lobby 1 Conference Room.
His elaborate origami sculptures are exhibited in permanent collections in New York and California as well as in Israel, Croatia, Japan and Spain. The UC Berkeley alumnus will give a talk, “Origami and Wildlife Conservation: A Field Biologist’s Perspective on Science and Art,” sponsored by the OP Staff Assembly. He is even bringing the paper, so join him and your OP colleagues in learning how to fold a few animals.
Peyton has worked in other media, including oil painting, film, metal and wood, but he says paper, which he first started working with when he was 9 years old, is his perfect medium. With a 20-year career as a bear biologist, he started folding bear sculptures, then expanded his menagerie to include other animals like sockeye salmon and red-eyed frogs.
“Paper has properties that most closely match what I want to say with my art,” Peyton writes on his website, “which is to encourage people to appreciate nature, and in so doing, use its products in a sustainable manner. Paper looks fragile and temporary, just like the status of the animal populations and their habitat that I studied.”
He tries to create a story with his animal sculptures, he says, depicting them in their natural habitat and posing them in action, the last minute before something is going to happen.
