The giant piece The Goddess of Paper Cutting and the Paper Cutting Girl, made by a late folk artist who told stories of daily life through paper-cutting, is on show at the Today Art Museum in Beijing on July 25, 2020. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]

Also on view are two giant paper-cuts by late folk artist Ku Shulan (1920-2004), a near-mythical figure known as the "Goddess of Paper-cutting".

"China is home to paper-making, but there had not been any exhibitions dedicated to contemporary paper art," said Li Hongbo, the curator and a participating artist of the exhibition. "I want to show there is so much artistic richness to paper despite the shrinking demand for the material in the digital age."

Li said he spent two solid years on his first curatorial effort. But he had harbored the idea for years of mounting an exhibit to showcase modern Chinese artists' experimentation with paper, a humble material for artistic creations.

"Paper is an inexpensive, readily available material that can be either fragile as a feather or hard as stone; besides, it can be colored, folded, carved, cut, burnt, soaked and then whipped into pulp, holding so much potential for artists to explore," Li explained.