Just stretch your imagination for a moment – Li Hongbo’s surprising sculptures go to show that in the world of art, what you see is not always what you get. <br /><br />His surprising accordeon-like works are inspired by Chinese paper-based folk art and the traditional paper toys he grew up with.<br /><br />“In the beginning, I discovered the flexible nature of paper through Chinese paper toys and paper lanterns. Later, I used this to make a gun. A gun is solid, used for killing, but I turned it into a toy or for decoration. In this way, it lost both the shape of a gun, and the inherent meaning of a gun. It was turned into a game,” says Li Hongbo. <br /><br />To make his sculptures the artist uses a stencil to paste glue in narrow strips across large pieces of paper which he then sticks together to form a block. He stacks up the blocks, before cutting, chiselling and sanding them down to the desired shape. <br /><br />“‘Strange’ and ‘unsettling’ are just words used by some people to describe my work. In fact, people have a fixed idea of what a human should look like, so when you transform a human shape, people will reconsider the nature of objects and the motivation behind the creation. This is what I care about,” says the artist.<br /><br />‘Tools of Study’, Li Hongbo’s first solo exhibition in the United States, is on at the Klein Sun Gallery in New York until early March.
