Li Hongbo is a Chinese artist born in 1974 in Siping, Jilin Province, who lives and works between Beijing and Jilin. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Jilin Normal University and went on to study folk art and then experimental art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Beijing, completing his Masters in 2010. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Jilin Normal University, where he directs the China Paper Art Research Institute, and a member of the Experimental Art Committee of the China Artists Association.

Li is among the best-known paper sculptors working today. Drawing on the honeycomb "paper-gourd" technique of Chinese folk toys, he glues thousands of sheets into dense blocks and carves them into classical busts, tools, books and weapons — forms as solid-looking as marble until they are lifted and drawn out, flexing and cascading like an accordion. In that single motion apparent permanence gives way to startling fluidity. His subjects — the plaster casts of academic training, textbooks and examination papers, guns and knives — turn the effect toward reflection on knowledge, tradition, education and violence, and on how easily the seemingly fixed can be pulled out of shape.

Li first showed with REDBASE in 2015 at their Foundation and at BAZAAR ART; and will be showing with REDBASE at Sydney Contemporary in 2026. In 2017, he received the Grand Prize of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, and his work is held in major public collections including the National Art Museum of China, Beijing; the White Rabbit Collection, Sydney; the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; the 21c Museum, USA; the Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Australia; Hubei Art Museum and Shandong Art Museum, China; and UBS, Switzerland.