PURPOSE/STATEMENTS

"I promise to push myself to the edge in creating the edgiest art the world has ever seen. My aim is to fulfill visions that stimulate society to think through analyzing history, reflecting our current state, or implementing an optimistic ideal of human conditions. There is both beauty and decay in our environments. Like someone that channels, my duty is to observe and learn from both and express it through my perspective, without apology."

-- YUN BAI aka YunnyBunny


To Yun Bai, the world is her medium. There is so much to say. Therefore she cannot commit to one style or mode of expression. Instead, she chooses to remain consistent in the themes found in her work by exploring and developing projects that evolve around these themes. In her projects, Bai focuses on 1) issues in identity while creating 2) social stimulatory experiments presented through 3) sarcastic mockery, often with a 4)feminist twist, while observing 5) urban culture with some sort of 6) scientific reference attached.

Yun also experiments with artwork under her alter ego, "YunnyBunny".

Below are the statements of her various projects.


STATEMENTS

WHAT IS A PORN FLOWER?

Do you know what a Porn Flower is? A Porn Flower symbolizes that “All women are flowers”, exemplifying that something beautiful can come out of a situation that most would deem difficult. Progressive artist Yun Bai proposes questions concerning new identity as she transforms the intimate flesh and rawness of pornographic images into flowers of hope and beauty. Her unique vision results in art with social impact that questions, reflects, sometimes involving men to support women. Yun personifies the flowers and captures the struggle of the human spirit in that weary moment right before a significant breakthrough. 

 

From afar you see the flowers -beautiful and detailed, but nothing out of the ordinary. Upon closer inspection, the leaves and petals reveal themselves to be female body parts drawn from a collage of imagery found in pornographic magazines. While some may view pornography as objectifying and exploitative, Yun uses the imagery as a form of empowerment to make something beautiful out of what the status quo deems vulgar. The Porn Flowers have grown to symbolize triumph over difficult times with a focus on healing, strength, courage, and enthusiasm for the future.

 

During college Yun learned her mother had cancer and her parents would be filing for bankruptcy. She was determined to graduate from Agnes Scott College, a private women's school, and needed to come up with money -- fast. She knew she wasn't slick enough to sell drugs, so she worked as an exotic dancer to complete her degree in Studio Art.  From one perspective the dancers were mothers, college students, marketing consultants, and gym teachers. From another view they were sex objects, outcasts, drug addicts, and women of ill-repute. Yun constantly struggled with her identity, but finally came to embrace the idea that she is a flower; all women are flowers.

 

This idea of empowering women to see themselves and each other as flowers of hope and triumph was realized recently by one of Yun's collectors. As her fight with cancer drew to a close, this collector requested she be surrounded with her family, friends and favorite art, including the Porn Flowers. Gathering together these most meaningful aspects of her life she found comfort, support, and the strength to view her passing as the beginning of a new journey. This touched Yun very much as it was the most priceless of compliments she has ever received. 

 

Not only does Yun strive to empower women but to also involve men in supporting equal rights of women. From donating unblemished porn, helping collage, to collaborating with her for charities focused on women's issues, men play an important role in the process of the Porn Flowers. 

 

Yun wants her audience to know that after the struggle, something extraordinarily beautiful always prevails. 



THE NIPPLE SECRET PROJECT

My work centers around specific reoccurring themes, rather than style. Identity, feminism, sexuality, scientific references, opposition, and mockery are common elements found in my work. The Nipple Secret project is an experiment of a small group of women who were asked, “If you could only represent yourself through your nipple, how would you do it?” This established a new form of identity for women in contrast to the “youthful face” that women’s identity are based upon today. In this experiment, a new form of identity is developed, defined by a secret shared between each friend and myself.

This project was a very intimate project between each friend and I, in that each friend told me a secret, and I shared my secret with her. However, it is ironic that each friend not only trusted me with her secret, but also allowed me to enlarge an image of her nipple for public viewing. While this project in its creation was a very intimate and private experience, the results and subject matter are very exposed. To be playful, the women I asked to participate in the project are linked one way or another, and some have met.

I wanted this project to mimic a very basic science experiment, in that there was a stimuli (the questions), a control group (nine women ranging from 23-45 years old), and the resulting pattern of responses as one possible outcome. This experiment allowed me to “throw the ball out there” by providing the questions as stimuli, to see which direction the answers would go. The women were asked to share any secret about themselves, and to decorate their nipple as a form of self representation. The outcome? 7 out of the 9 women chose to share sexual experiences from childhood / teenagehood.

The range of the secrets varied from “Nobody gives me better sex than myself” to “I was raped when I was fourteen”. Other secrets include “I ate shit once, when I was four”, “I got my first orgasm from watching ballet when I was fifteen”, and “When I was a kid, I let my dog lick me down there, and it felt good”.

I chose to take “nipple portraits” as a mockery of women’s obsession with the youthful face. Nipples, like faces, have wrinkles and moles too. Here, however, the nipples give the women an ageless appearance, because the viewer is unable to guess the age of each participant. The women are ageless in their identity here, except in the memory of their secrets.

The Nipple Secret Project consists of nine photo prints on vinyl, each measuring 18” x 18” and available for sale.


COMFORT COLOR SERIES

The first five years of a child’s life are vital in the development of character and interests. It is during this period that children develop characteristics, preferences, and curiosities. This early period was especially important to me because I spent the first five years of my life in Beijing, China. It was a time of discovery, innocence, and playfulness. This series focuses on my childhood memories and emotional associations with color, my “comfort colors”.

When I was a small child I would see colorful, vivid forms floating about in my everyday life. While other children had imaginary friends, I had imaginary colors. They floated across people’s heads, would appear when someone spoke, or when someone expressed intense emotion such as anger or fear. Thus, I associated color with thoughts and emotions.

I did not pay attention to the physical world as a child, but to the “hidden” colors that only I could see. When I was in an unfamiliar environment, I would quickly imagine myself surrounded by these comfort colors to banish any fear I had. These colorful forms would layer themselves and float about, as if they had their own identities and agendas.

Physical reality bored me as a child. I was so much more than the small Asian face I saw in the mirror. I was red, orange, yellow, gold, magenta! I viewed physical reality as “skin” to one’s color substance. Color represented substance and truth to one’s physical façade. I trusted my comfort colors more than their physical source because the colors were figments of my imagination, and therefore, valid. When my mother spoke to me, I would not pay attention to what she had to say, but rather to the colors I saw associated with her. If they were colors I felt comfortable with, then I would listen to her.

I chose to focus on mood and the emotions felt during a particular time, instead of physical attributes. There is also a focus on the intimacy I had with my comfort colors. They protected me, guided me, and warned me. My reality, and others’ reality, existed purely within these colors.

The small sizes of the watercolors reinforce intimacy. I consider them to be “little treats”. They range from 9”x 12” to 10” x 14”, and one oil painting (24” x 36”). I first stained initial layers with Magic of Rose tea, then built layers on top with Chinese ink, watercolor, and poster color. I felt it necessary to combine sensuality and playfulness in my work, as it best describes what the comfort colors meant to me. They were childhood companions, and my first encounter with self-trust and intimacy.

This series has sold out.


FUSION SERIES

Chaos, Order, Fusion, and Existence are abstract paintings reflective of elements in structure (found in laws, science, the body, etc.) which counteract and stabilize chaotic occurrences (the uncontrollable, the inevitable, accidents). The fusion of these forces presents an array of unique combinations and instances for each individual. Each form is symbolic of an occurrence, a stimulus, or a thought. One’s life is interpreted as random and systematic fusion, where combinations of “components” become one’s existence and identity.

Scientific references, explorations with identity, and providing stimuli are key elements in my work. Never again, will the last second that just passed come again. This series focuses on the uniqueness of existence, the components and “fusion” of those components that makes life so original. These paintings represent my own autobiographical fusion as well as those of the masses.

Plants, cellular forms, references to the physical body, and the stimulus / response relationship are analyzed in their relation to human kind. Plant silhouettes appear as reminders of mortality and organic livelihood, as our lives mimic that of flowers. The circular forms are symbolic of a stimulus, a thought, and DNA, all in a cellular existence.
Each “cell” is symbolic of a human, as their components are seen inside the cell. “Components” include everyday living actions, emotional views, and exterior stimuli. Different combinations of these components occur naturally, creating one’s existence.

So often is physical reality used as a form of identification and measurement. My paintings are an interesting contrast to physical identity. Here, identity is based on outside influences that stimulant each person into giving a response. That response creates a closure to that particular stimulus / response relationship. A new assumption of identity is consumed by that individual based on that person’s response. Every new stimulus / response relationship serves as a new replacement of identification. Millions of stimulus / response relationships occur everyday in an individual. Each second a new identity is formed based upon response. The paintings capture one second of the continuous fusion. Thus, we are who we are based on what we’ve done.

The series ranges from 9” x 12” small watercolors on paper to 56” x 53” oil paintings on canvas. Layering plays a large part in the creative process, as I often use glazes to show the results of addition. Layering is symbolic of closure in the many stimulus / response relationships. Each layer is a new addition to a new identity within an individual. Some works possess an overworked quality to them: the overworked composition, wild colors, and many layers serve as stimuli for the viewer to respond to. There is so much going on one is forced to keep looking, or look away from it.

This series is sold out.