The Art of Paper Engineering

Who would have thought you could make a career being a ‘paper engineer’?

Well Sydney designer Benja Harney is doing just that. His paper pieces – which range from large sculptures to delicate miniature pop-up books – are indeed works of art that only someone with a steady hand and, I assume, a lot of patience could spend their days making.

I happened upon his ‘blush’ of paper flamingos while flicking through a Vogue magazine while waiting at the dentists the other day (and made my lovely dentist wait while I quickly scribbled down Benja’s name!). He made these for an exhibition called Animal Noun Collective at Sydney’s Gaffa Gallery.

When I got home I checked out his other work and it is clear he is super talented.

This is what he did for the David Jones 2012 Christmas Catalogue …

And this for the Kylie Minogue book: The Goddess Edition …

His latest work, New Platonic, is based around working with paper only and not using glue …

Clever stuff!