Lan Bai
About
Lan Bai (b.1997, CN) lives and works in Shanghai and London. She graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Contemporary Art Practice, following a BA in Public Art at the Shanghai Institute of visual art.
She has been engaged in public art design for the past few years, but recently she has undergone a significant transformation. Due to personal changes in her life, she has chosen to shift her focus towards creating works that express her inner emotions. Her works primarily revolve around the female body, female pain, and the experiences of women in intimate relationships.
Statement
Lan Bai has a preference for organizing art events and actively inviting numerous spectators to participate in the creation of her artworks. She aspires to create a platform where women can share, empathize, and support one another. She believes that through art, we can transcend boundaries and establish closer connections and resonance. She hopes that her works will evoke emotional empathy in the audience and stimulate reflection and discussion on the female experience.
Lan Bai's artworks go beyond the exploration of the female body and emotions; they serve as a voice calling for gender equality and women's rights. She aims to empower women and shed light on their unique strength and resilience through artistic creation.
In her works, Lan Bai endeavours to present the inner world of women in a distinctive manner. She employs various mediums, including painting, sculpture, and installation art, to express her observations and experiences of the female body and emotions. Her artworks are often imbued with emotion and immediacy, provoking contemplation on gender and identity.
The Hidden Hill
Medium: paper clay
Size: Random
The Hidden Hill final work preview
The Hidden Hill, Our hidden pain
The process of this work is a journey of self-exploration and empathy. Initially, I started this project driven by my personal pain experience and my own trauma within my original family.
Personally, I believe that pain is inevitably intertwined with intimate relationships, both on a physical and psychological level. Speaking from my own experiences and those within my family, including various gynecological conditions, menstrual pain, childbirth pain, illnesses caused by emotional reasons, and emotional trauma. Unfortunately, these forms of pain, whether within intimate relationships or in a societal context, are often easily overlooked.
Once, while experiencing menstrual pain, I knead a piece of clay, attempting to divert my attention and lessen the sharpness of the pain. It was during this time that I completed the first component of this work. As I looked at this piece of pain, I realized it was a tangible representation of my own suffering. I discovered that it was a powerful way to concretize these indescribable pains we endure.
And then, I expanded my perspective to encompass the experiences of females as a collective, aiming to amplify the voices and expressions of pain for a broader range of females.
I invited dozens of women to participate in the creation of this work. We gathered together, and I invited them to recall and share their own experiences of pain, and to create the shape of their pain. Using various parts of our bodies, we’ve made hundreds of shapes of pain.
Finally, I would assemble and stack them together, forming a sculpture.
