Do you remember every wedding in the ’80s?

How all the decorations were most likely wedding bells made of honeycomb paper.  But I guess that’s not entirely fair. People have been decorating with honeycombed paper since then.  If you’re not sure what that is exactly, do a google search real quick, I can wait.  Okaaay…  got it?  Good.

Now imagine that, only better and you still won’t be prepared for what I want to show you.

Li Hongbo is a Beijing-born artist with a penchant for paper.  And oh boy!  What a penchant!

The best way to witness this artist’s phenom’s work is the video above. Seeing him remove that log from the crate I thought to myself, ‘okay, that’s a weird way to pack firewood’. Then he began stretching it.

Stretching it!

Like it was made of elastic or something!  But it’s not made of elastic, it’s paper.  Layers upon layers of pristine white paper.

The average Li Hongbo sculpture is made up of about 6,000 honeycombed layers of paper.  6,000; though some others have gone upwards of 20,000!  Which is why with some of the larger honeycomb sculptures, they can stretch across a room.

His ‘Torso of a Young Woman’ measures a little less than 5 feet tall (when un-stretched). The upper half of the torso can be ‘lifted’ off the lower half and laid alongside it.  Giving the impression that the now distended midsection is made out of a paper slinky.