This spring, ELLE gathered for the first time more than a dozen female artists in the field of Chinese contemporary art to launch a group exhibition entitled "Soft"—a "soft manifesto", works of art created with seemingly soft materials or forms, but in fact full of energy to respond to the present, and interpret the "new feminism" that ELLE wants to define. In this issue, Wonder Women walks into the studios of three of these artists and engages them in a conversation about women's art.
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Sun Yidian
Painter, he is also one of the most noticed young Chinese artists in recent years. In 2019, he was selected as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asian Outstanding Youth, and his works involve painting, installation, performance, and fashion crossovers, and have been displayed and collected by major institutions at home and abroad.
Being an artist is like a practice. This is what we felt when we chatted with Sun Yidan in her studio.
Sun Yidan's studio is hidden in the center of the half-town, half-village area, and almost every newcomer to the country will be bluffed by its hidden location for a while, spinning around without a clue. Last summer, she moved her studio here. Many artists who choose studios in the urban-rural areas around Beijing face the fate of being demolished, but here it is more stable, she said, which she cares about.
Because, she spends most of her life here. I came to the studio every morning at 10 a.m. like clocking in, stayed until eight or nine o'clock in the evening, and slept for half an hour after lunch. Occasionally she came across a painting that she couldn't draw, so she stopped to read.
So when will you not be able to draw? We are particularly curious about this.
She frowned and smiled again. "It's very random, it's easy to enter a state of 'flow' when drawing, and everything around you can't feel it, but sometimes it's hard to get into this state." When it comes to painting, she always has a determination and seriousness beyond her age, and it seems that these creative concepts that she wants to adhere to have been repeatedly pondered in her heart countless times.
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Sun Yidan, born in 1991, is a young painter in terms of age, and in recent years she has become the most talked about post-90s artist. But from life experience, she is already an old painter.
Sun Yidan was born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, a well-developed coastal commercial city. Growing up in the 90s, she could not escape "training and education", and attended many interest classes as a child - she recalled that these were not all so harmonious and happy, for example, sitting in front of the piano she began to cry; While playing basketball, the coach yelled at her, "Don't stick to the big silly man." But, at first glance, it was clear to her, "I love to draw." When I was 4 years old, I saw my kindergarten classmates scribbling and drawing on books and going to the teacher's house to learn to draw after class, "I was very envious, I said I also want to learn."
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There is always some unexplained sense of fate and indescribable fate in life, and this is true between people and people, people and things. She said that when she was a child, she was a very shy person, and when she picked up the brush, she found a way to express herself in addition to speaking, whether it was certain emotions or ignorant understanding of the world, for her, painting was the most comfortable and appropriate outlet.
Painting is like an invisible companion, like her other pair of hands or eyes, growing up, both accompanying each other and Sun Yidian's ability to explore, touch and connect the world.
The first moment of "enlightenment" or "empowerment" came from the expressionist master Schiller. "It may be that when I was in the sixth grade, the teacher showed us a sketch of him, and at that moment I suddenly realized that painting is not only to trace what the eyes see, but to express what the heart feels, not to 'copy' according to reality, art exists in another parallel world above reality."
Sun Yidan compares the establishment of one's own artistic world and ideas to building a castle and building a brick in a day or a week. After being admitted to Central American High School, she began to create a series of "natural objects" for herself. "At that time, she was still a young girl, and there were many emotions that were difficult to dispel, which could not be said and could only be expressed through painting. I don't just finish those paintings with the mentality of 'this is homework or homework', it's like writing a diary, I follow the pulse and clues of emotions more and more, and build the 'castle' more and more presentable. To this day, the "Natural Objects" series is still a very special existence in her creations, never traded in art, and the delicate and metaphorical expression in it is an interesting contrast with her most representative "Artificial Objects" series.
Coming soon
44 x 27 cm
Wood panel composite material
2017
Image from the artist
Rose red lake
35 x 25 cm
Wood panel composite material
2016
Image from the artist
These two seem to be the two sides of the same body of sensibility and rationality, which is precisely the subtle transformation of Sun Yidan from a creator who expresses himself through painting to a professional artist.
When she was an undergraduate student at Central America, she saw a large number of master works and went to the art museum to see the original works she had copied with her own eyes, "I suddenly understood that there is a difference between what I imagined when I was a child and what I really want to pursue in my heart now." I didn't have much 'awareness' when I first painted, but I just thought that painting the paper with color gave me a wonderful happiness, unlike all the other happiness I could get at the time.
However, starting from this kind of enthusiasm and pure happiness, Sun Yidan walked out of a rational, controlled, reflective and allegorical artistic style, and shifted from the expression of inner emotions to more calm and profound social thinking.
"Because I now feel that artistic creation is not just an outlet for emotions, it is a relatively primitive and instinctive state, and a trained painter should know how to express when it should be expressed, and hide when it should be hidden."
Empty V
Void V
45.5 × 38 cm × 2
Wood plank acrylic
Acrylic on wood panel
2020
Image from the artist
The "Artificial Objects" series is a fragmentary memory of childhood and the DNA of the Wen Shang city and era in Sun Yidian's adult "counterattack". She remembers that when she was a child, there were a large number of leather and shoe processing factories in Wenzhou, but few of them were of good quality, and in addition to shoes, there were also a lot of rough plastic products, especially inflatable toys. The color, material and feel with a sense of the times are all left in Sun Yidian's mind.
The creation of the "man-made objects" series really began after a trip to Yiwu. Yiwu, the world's small commodity capital, is very close to Wenzhou, and in her senior year, she went to Yiwu once and entered the place that was filled with "things", wrapped in "things", and at the same time constantly produced new "things", just like "Harry · Potter's house with the copy spell. Childhood memories and the inspiration of the present have undergone a new fusion.
willing
Ken
100 × 80 cm × 2
Acrylic on canvas
Acrylic on canvas
2020
Image from the artist
In this important series, Sun Yidan shows a level of painting that has to be impressive—only when you look closely, you can see that it is a flat painting, not a real inflatable toy or a three-dimensional device, the texture and light and shadow are perfect, and if you look further, you will find the imperfections she deliberately left behind, such as burrs, creases or subtle color unevenness at the seams of the toy.
A gun without bullets
Gun without Bullets
150 × 600 cm
Acrylic on canvas
Acrylic on canvas
2022
Image from Schberg Gallery
Unlike the "Natural Objects" series, which is about two meters long and wide, Sun Yidan may have to paint for more than 20 days, and before starting a new work, she may stare at the blank canvas in the studio for a day, rehearsing the whole process in her mind.
"Every painting is a bottleneck for me, and I think any artist who has requirements for himself will not copy a successful painting indefinitely, but hope that each one will have a breakthrough, and the breakthrough process is very painful."
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For Sun Yidan, bottlenecks are common, but the confused period has never been. We think maybe it's because the "bottleneck" and "confusion" in her understanding are not the same as those in general knowledge. Just as she feels that the so-called bottleneck is a stage that is both painful and happy when she is forced to break through, "I feel confused that you have stopped." When a person stops what he is doing, he will definitely be lost, but as long as I work every day, spend time in the studio, and keep looking, thinking, feeling, I will not be lost. ”
Last year, she decided to go back to school, but this time she did not choose to paint, but entered Tsinghua University to pursue a doctorate in literature and art. In fact, people who know Sun Yidan will not be surprised. On the shelves of her studio, in addition to all kinds of picture books, the rest are almost all literary books, including novels, non-fiction, and academic tomes. She has always been interested in literature and philosophy, "My mentor's research interests are critical theory, cultural studies, modern art and literature. In the new field, I suddenly became more intimate with words, and this provided new nutrients for my paintings. ”
It feels good to be back on campus, on the one hand, it is a very familiar and secure state, on the other hand, as a professional artist after graduating from graduate school, she has been in the release of efficient high-energy fields for several years, and she feels that she is now eager to absorb some nutrients like a sponge.
Painting is not only Sun Yidian's way of understanding the world and expressing herself, but also her way of knowing herself and discovering her heart. In her words, the artist is divided, one she resembles a female worker in a village at the junction of urban and rural areas, and the other she occasionally goes to glamorous exhibition openings and magazine shoots. Interestingly, unexpectedly, she says, "When I shoot magazines, I feel as if I have become the consumerist dolls in the 'artificial objects' series, and I actually enter my creative context." ”
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"The problems I encounter in the process of painting are quite similar to the problems I encounter in life, so I think about what kind of person I am and what kind of life I want."
When Sun Yidan laughs and is serious, like two people with completely different personalities, just like she said that she is actually a "small child, want to live in childhood", she is more willing to immerse herself in childhood time and feelings, do not want to be an adult, but many times in the face of reality and have to "pretend" to be an adult. Everyone says that she has been a good child and a good student all the way, but we feel that Sun Yidan's love and obsession with childlike heart and innocence is the biggest and most romantic rebellion in the adult world, she may be a good child, but she is a rebellious adult.
Photography: Yu Lu
Styling: Dani
Makeup: YIN
Hairstyle: Yansong
Interview/Written by: Xiaoyang
EDITED BY KIKO, SHERRY
Design: SHU