Preview - The Institute of Science In Society

84Yizhisu, One Paper ArtTransformations on a sheet of painted paperSculptures by Mae-Wan Ho, torn-up paintings by Li PoonTop left to bottom right: Squid, Courtier, Lady, Soldier, Inca Angel, Great Bird, Thin Man, Tiger, Kabuki, Tumbler, Angel,Dinosaur, Drummer, Warrior, Airplane, Spider, Ant, Dragon, longest dimension of the largest 30 cmIt was a little more than a week to Christmas 2009. Li and I had just finished improvising a six-foot tall Christmas tree out ofcoloured papers, cut, variously shaped, then draped and secured at rakish angles around a long piece of drift wood we foundby a lake on a family holiday some years ago. It was a branch broken off from the trunk, washed down a river, sun-bleachedand polished to a pearl-white glimmer; and had been standing propped up in the corner of the living room, half forgotten.Forgotten, that is, until I was gripped by the panic of having to put up a Christmas tree for the granddaughters, and the onlyavailable option was an ugly plastic replica in the department store costing hundreds of dollars. Our tree was a great successby comparison, and in many more respects than the money we saved.My appetite for paper sculpting having been whetted, I craved to do more, and decided to recreate the spin wheels ofmy childhood days. Those were made from brightly coloured paper and secured vertically or horizontally at the end of a stick;so that when held up to the wind, they would spin for as long as the wind was blowing.Spinwheel transformsI tried making them from the same coloured papers we had used for the Christmas tree, but they were not stiffenough. So I settled on Li’s torn-up paintings instead.Li has a high level of intolerance for his own ‘bad’ paintings, and will tear them up if he feels they don’t hang togetheras a whole, though some of the parts could be preserved as miniatures; miniatures that could be very good indeed. Luckily, hehas not gone as far as to throw them out. There was a stack of them, all painted on both sides.