I’m never sure how I feel about organized religion, but my ambivalence has never affected my love of the art and architecture of religion. No matter where we go, we always try to hit at least one cathedral or temple to gawk in contented awe at the wonders therein.

Inspired by Gothic and Islamic architecture, artist Eric Standley re-imagines those permanent structures of stone and glass using a laser and “the instability and familiarity” of paper. Incredibly, these masterpieces measure only about 20″ square.

Involving a minimum of 100 sheets of paper, the level of precision and attention to detail is unimaginable. I’m pretty good, spatially, but I don’t think I could keep track of this many planes at once. And not only does he need to consider what’s left behind, he also has to have a real grasp of the negative space. The video below is a great explanation of how he works.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/60263246″>Virginia Tech: Eric Standley</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/virginiatech”>virginiatech</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>