When I first saw these sculptures, they just looked like ordinary stone sculptures, beautiful but ordinary. I was then mesmerised when they were stretched! It was impossible!
These incredible stretchy sculptures are made by Li Hongbo, a Chinese artist fascinated by paper. His interest in paper started when he was a publisher, taking great care to consider which paper he should use for each book; the characteristics of the paper, texture, durability, look, style etc and make sure the paper he used suited the book being published.
During holiday times in his house they would have ‘honeycomb’ paper gourd lanterns and he saw a much greater potential in the way the lanterns were created. He now uses the same techniques as these lanterns to make his incredible sculptures.
To make the sculptures he stencils glue on to large pieces of paper and layers the paper together, using thousands layers for each sculpture, until he has a big enough block and then carves out the desired sculpture. Carefully considering then the depth, width, mass, and centre of each piece to ensure it is stable, if the centre is slightly off it will fall over.
If you want to find out more about these amazing sculptures then check out the links below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-25856531
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/02/new-flexible-paper-sculptures-by-li-hongbo/
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/03/li-hongbo-explains-his-flexible-paper-sculptures/