Citizen Brooklyn

Photo © Li Hongbo

We’ve featured various handmade paper artworks over the years here, but perhaps none of them are as mind-bendingly flexible as the paper works by Chinese artist Li Hongbo. What may seem at first as classically styled plaster busts is immediately shattered when the pieces are put into motion, unfolding into rather psychedelic elongations of form through space and time.

Photo © Li Hongbo

According to This Is Colossal, Li’s inspiration came not from an unforeseen avant-garde source, but from traditional Chinese paper crafts:

A book editor and designer, [Li] became fascinated by traditional Chinese toys and festive decorations known as paper gourds made from glued layers of thin paper which can be stored flat but then opened to reveal a flower or other shape. He applied the same honeycomb-like paper structure to much larger human forms resulting in these highly flexible sculptures.

Read the rest at: http://www.treehugger.com