US man creates BREATHTAKING giant origami statue

This amazing time-lapse video shows a talented student creating a breath-taking five-foot-nine high statue - from a single piece of paper.

Chris Conrad, 22, took around 65 hours designing and then folding the stunning 'dragon tamer' figure after first sticking together a 19-foot square piece of paper.

Chris, who works as a researcher at a political consultancy, spends 15-25 hours a week on his origami projects, of which he produces around one piece a week.

Chris, from New York, said: "Just making the 19-foot square to start with was exhausting!

"It takes maybe one minute of the time-lapse, but that was six hours for me with only one break!”

Understandably, the project was a massive undertaking and left Chris both mentally and physically exhausted:

He added: “Every part of the project took longer and was more physically taxing than I anticipated.

“Honestly, I was mainly relieved it was over.

“That said, I think the most challenging part was right at the end because the model was so heavy, I had to stand it up using a lamp.

“Gravity tried to sort of stretch out the neck and torso in a way that was really difficult to deal with."

The incredible skills that Chris demonstrates in making this piece haven’t evolved over a long period of time, it is mainly something he picked up over the last few years.

“I've been doing origami since I was in middle school - so around 12 years,” which may seem like a while, but he continued:

“I only started folding super-complex origami in May 2020, and I only started designing my own models in December 2020.”

“Basically, I've acquired most of the skills I have today in the last two years."

The very technical and specific field of political research seemed at odds with Chris’ status as an artist.

He added; “For now I'm happy with my current field, but I definitely want to make moves towards doing art full time over the long run.”

“I'm hoping to spend a lot more time in the remainder of 2022 refining my skills as a designer and start submitting work to galleries in the next year,”

"I think there's something intensely satisfying about how tactile origami is - everything is done with your hands...you have a physical finished product to point to and think to yourself 'I made that.'"