Éric Joisel

Éric Joisel (15 November 1956 – 10 October 2010) was a French origami artist who specialized in the wet-folding method, creating figurative art sculptures using sheets of paper and water, without the use of any adhesive or scissors.

[1][2][3][4][5] Joisel was born on 15 November 1956, in Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, and focused his education on history and law before turning to art.

[6] Joisel shifted to working with paper in the 1990s, devoting the remainder of his career to creating origami art using his own self-taught variation of the wet-folding techniques that Yoshizawa had developed and refined.

Themed pieces that he handcrafted included figures from commedia dell'arte and foot-high sculptures of musicians each holding a finely detailed musical instrument.

[6][8][9] Joisel published many of the design plans for his figures, providing a look into the extraordinary level of detail and precision that "renders his art simultaneously approachable and unattainable".