Sun Yitian Gun without bullets, 2022

Sun Yitian’s work entitled Gun Without Bullets consists of 4 canvases that together form a large-scale acrylic painting. A long and meticulously precise painting process based on photographs of her subject is characteristic of the artist’s practice.

Emphasizing the surfaces of objects, the main sources of inspiration for Sun Yitian’s motifs have been inflatable plastic toys and other mass-produced articles. As the title of this work suggests, the depicted gun is not an actual piece of weaponry, but a prop or a toy. Set against a light blue background and illuminated by frontal lighting with deep shadows behind it, the toy gun is rendered in a graphic style combining photorealism and elements of loose drawing that are visible in the representation of the gun itself.