What do you do with corrugated cardboard boxes you keep collecting from Amazon and other retail stores? Put them in the trash bin or use them to store things, right? Well, Monomi Ohno has other ideas. She makes sculptures out of them that are so intricate that it boggles the mind.
Born in Wakayama, Japan, this cardboard artist, MOBOT creator, and movie maker, learned character modeling and 3D animation from Osaka University of Arts in Osaka, Japan. However, due to the paucity of funds, she was unable to pay the fees associated with art projects and looked around for an affordable medium.
It was then that she noticed Amazon cardboard boxes piled up at her home and chose cardboard as her medium. In an interview with mymodernmet.com, she states, “I tried making something out of (the boxes) and found out that cardboard is a surprisingly fun medium to work with, and from there I really started getting into creating with it!”
Once Ohno started making objects from corrugated cardboard boxes to complete her art school project, there was no looking back. She got hooked onto it and has continued to create magnificent pieces of art, ranging from automatic weapons and tanks to intricate watches and futuristic robots.
For some of her more intricate pieces, she has to meticulously cut the cardboard into tiny pieces and glue them together. This backbreaking job takes Ohno hours to complete since she has to achieve various patterns, textures, and features in every sculpture most accurately.
What’s most astounding is the fact that she’s able to create these intricate details without using precision machine tools. Her tools are those used in art classes – scissors, box cutters, glue, rulers and masking tape. On the other hand, her contemporaries involved in cardboard art, such as Poplar Zhou, a Japanese cardboard artist, use a laser to cut cardboards into desired shapes.
Whether they use hand tools or power tools, cardboard in the hands of these cardboard artists invariably gets transformed into beautiful sculptures. Ohno would’ve been an unknown art teacher in Japan had she not ventured into this field and posted her works on the internet. Her motivation for venturing into this was a lack of money that she hoped to earn on the internet, creating just about anything from cardboard.
For those interested, Monami Ohno website offers cardboard sculptures for sale. Those desirous of learning this art can also enroll in her workshops.
Monami Ohno: Website | Instagram