Man makes over 200 relief sculptures out of soda cans (3)

A man from central Hubei province was recently acknowledged as national folk artist for his special relief sculptures out of soda cans, chinanews.com reported on Tuesday. The man has made over 200 works so far.

The 65-year-old man, named Zhu Xinquan, discovered his interest in relief sculptures on a trip to Germany 15 years ago. On that trip, he saw an artistic and practical pen container made of soda cans.

Upon returning home, Zhu started to practice carving on soda cans. After his retirement, he devoted even more time to it. It takes him over 20 days to finish a complex relief sculpture.

The works he has carved vary widely in both size and subject matter. With continuous efforts, Zhu greatly improved his skill and created many complicated stereoscopic works. For example, Zhu’s largest relief sculpture, called “Mendicant Priest,” has a height of 1.7 meters and width of 1.1 meters. It required more than 100 cans to produce.

But rather than selling his works, Zhu gives most of them to his friends as gifts. He even refused a collector’s offer of 300,000 yuan ($46,320) to buy his work.

"I'll hold an exhibition when I have enough work and enough skill," Zhu said.