Sun Yihan (China, b. 2003) is studying in the Department of Integrated Painting at the China Academy of Art. Currently lives and works in Hangzhou. He captures the traces left by time within architectural structures, framing the figures and animals he paints into wooden grids—like a timeline inscribed upon a wall. Within this vast expanse of time and space, he looks back; through the flow of distance, he observes, detaching himself from disturbance. The fragmentary extraction of human figures, juxtaposed with animals, is akin to an individual stepping outside the self to gaze upon the untamed freedom buried deep within the subconscious. Through associations of fractured imagery, peering through compressed channels, those underlying emotions seldom touched upon are uncovered and released. His works have been exhibited at the Qiantang Bay Art Museum.

Sun Yihan’s creative perspective acutely engages with the evidence left on building façades by weathering—the inevitable bumps, erosions, and graffiti. In his view, such seemingly disordered records are in fact an egalitarian treatment of events, in which the depth of time, the significance of occurrences, and the dissolution of existence are compressed and flattened. Through this visual translation, he seeks to delve into the essential nature of existence, exploring how the power of civilization shifts and dissolves at its peripheries.

Sun Yihan constructs frameworks from wood and employs a variety of materials to simulate structures resembling architectural forms. Regarding architecture as both witness and shaper of human activity, he deliberately places animals, traces of life, and distant landscapes upon these cold, man-made, and rigid structures. Through a stiff, even violent mode of deconstruction, he disrupts the original state of existence of these subjects. The stark contrast between these natural imprints—rendered in a state of sensibility—and the rational imagery further intensifies the conflict and tension between opposing positions. Amid vibrant, leaping contrasts of color, he seeks to lead viewers beyond the constraints of a singular perspective, searching at the borders of contradiction for a buoyant, overflowing vitality of life.