HOW TO FOLD MY HEART

How To Fold My Heart With Stripes
How To Fold My Heart With Stripes (2013), 24″ x 30″, latex, graphite, red and blue pencil, and ink on linen

Through the people and place in our lives, we come to understand who we are and create our personal narratives, our identity and our sense of belonging. How can identity be visualized? What form does it take as it shifts and evolves over time and space?

How To Fold My Heart attempts to illustrate these ideas as origami folding patterns using personal data tied to geographic location. Each work carries within it the instructions for creating the shape of my life and the lives of family members, resulting in conceptual portraits. To develop the patterns, I use a program called TreeMaker, developed by Robert Lang in cooperation with Professor Erik Demaine and Martin L. Demaine at MIT. I create a “tree” using personal data and allow the program to optimize a crease pattern for the origami shape that becomes the template for my images. This tree can be manipulated to create endless variations for the resulting shape.

 

SELECTED WORKS (view a full listing of these works)

How to Fold My Home
How to Fold My Home (2011), 48″ x 84″, latex and graphite on latex

 

How to Fold My Heart as a dryer coil
How to Fold My Heart as a Dryer Coil (2012), 24″ x 36″, latex, graphite and red correction pencil on canvas

 

HTFMH : Lynn Gordon, 60in x 48in, oil on canvas
HTFMH : Lynn Gordon (2013), 60in x 48in, oil on canvas

 


How To Fold My Heart: Annah Lee I (2013), 12″ x 12″, enamal and ink with incised lines on panel

 


Skin #1 (2014), 58″ x 54″, acrylic on loose canvas

 


Durham in Stripes (2015), 26″ x 20″, gouache on Yupo

 


left to right (2015): Our Fused Love, My Authentic Artifice, Water for My Father, 84″ x 84″, oil on loose canvas

 


My Thermodynamic System (2016), 30″ x 30″, acrylic on panel with incised lines