These Tasty-Looking Foods Are Actually Sculpted Paper

Raya Sader Bujana used her background in architecture as inspiration for her intricate paper sculptures.

February 7, 2016, 5:00pm

Photos courtesy of the artist

The Internet helps feed the cravings of foodies around the world—social media makes it easy to share recipes, restaurant recommendations and gorgeous photos of mouth-watering meals. But Barcelona-based paper artist Raya Sader Bujana gives a distinct twist to the saturation of food images online. From afar, her photographs seem to depict food items, but these are in fact painstakingly intricate paper creations.

Bujana transforms delectable food items into intricate paper sculptures. Through her creations, she strives to capture the same color, texture and sumptuousness of these foods in their original state. A slice of pie includes a dollop of whipped cream on top— a piece of white paper expertly folded and placed to resemble the luscious topping it imitates.

Using the name Little Ray of Sunflower, Bujana shares her creations on social media. She also highlights her process and some of the non-paper-related things that inspire her, like a snapshot of the beach or a photo of brunch. Each paper creation is colorful and intricate, drawing from Bujana’s background in architecture.

“I started working with paper and cardboard back when I was studying architecture, paper has always been one of my favorite mediums to work with,” Bujana tells The Creators Project. “I find it graceful and endlessly versatile. Paper can be layered, shaped, cut, folded, colored, sculpted, so it's full of possibilities, the more I experiment with it the more possibilities I see.”

For her Etsy shop, Bujana creates origami pieces including jewelry and cake toppers. Each piece shows careful attention to detail, despite their small size. An origami necklace in the shape of a rose, for example, measures only about a centimeter wide. To keep each piece resilient to outside elements, Bujana varnishes them with up to five layers of glass finish polish.

Bujana takes ordinary objects and re-envisions them as paper ones, adding a layer of delicacy to everything from her jewelry to her food pieces. Paper is often thought of as a vulnerable material, easily crumbled and reshaped. But Bujana sees the medium as a way to imbue ordinary objects with a little more imagination.

“I like observing and giving my own interpretation of simple everyday things,” writes Bujana. “I think observation is a powerful tool for creativity. I can be looking at something as simple as a slice of cucumber, my house plants, the latte I'm having, a camera or a person doing gymnastics and think "Hey, this could look great made out of paper!" and so I make it!”

The artist first started her food series by experimenting with watermelon and cucumbers. After that, she moved on to more complex pieces like a latte with foam art. Bujana sees food as “fun, colorful and visually appealing,” the perfect elements for creating her pieces. She plans on continuing the food series with new pieces and recently started a series dedicated to “large scale tropical leaves.”