Born in Pittsburgh and living in Connecticut, Benjamin DiLeonardo-Parker has an active student of origami tessellations since 2007. He has taught and exhibited at origami conventions and art shows internationally, including Chi Mei Museum (Tainan City, Taiwan), La Escuela-Museo Origami de Zaragosa (Zaragosa, Spain), The Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK), the Museum of Mathematics (New York, NY), the Japan Information and Culture Center (Washington D.C.), The New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT), and the Cooper Union Gallery (New York, NY). Outside of art, Ben teaches high school mathematics to students with uncommon learning styles, and incorporates origami into his classes as often as he can. Ben approaches his artwork from a holistic standpoint, preferring to view origami as an entry into the vast network of disciplines to which it is connected. This has led him to extend his knowledge of education, engineering, mathematics, CNC fabrication, paper arts, fashion, alternative photography, and other studies. When not teaching high school math, Ben operates a workshop in Essex, CT out of which he creates artwork and runs classes on origami design, He views his practice of origami as cyclical and recursive. Origami is connected to such as vast network of disciplines, each with its own siren’s call. Each flavor, each culture, cycles back onto its own basics over and over, swirling and interacting with previous knowledge, each enhancing the others in some way.
