Sun Yitian Blue Ribbon, 2024

Sun Yitian's large-scale painting depicts the head of a female figure against a purplish-red background. The women has youthful pigtails, tied with the eponymic blue ribbons, and wears a frilly white blouse of which the color is visible. Her mouth, lined by bright red lips, is wide open, as if singing or shouting. Only the small reflections of light visible on the figure's eyes make it identifiable as an inflatable object.

The work draws on Sun Yitian's characteristic vocabulary of dolls with generalized facial expressions and inflatable toys. Yet, Blue Ribbon also recalls the artist's earlier self-portraits in which she used the simplified features of sex dolls as influence.

The ambivalence inherent in the motif—its reading suspended in the multiplicity of signs, between symbols of girlishness and associations with a sexualized object—is a recurring theme in Sun Yitian's work.

About her exploration of the notion of beauty in this painting, the artist has noted "The beauty of women is transformed into a social value. Beauty becomes a form of coercion, an unrelenting ambition and a task to be fulfilled. From birth, a woman is constantly required to adorn and reflect upon herself, while her subjectivity is gradually stripped away. When we put on lace-trimmed clothes, apply thick mascara, and tie a decorative blue ribbon around ourselves, emulating the image of women portrayed on television and in magazines, are we really getting closer to excellence (the blue ribbon)? Or is it more often a silent helplessness where we open our mouths but cannot speak? In the myth of beauty, we are constantly being hollowed out."

For the artist the presence of the small black mole is a deliberate choice: "Moles are something we are born with, a part of us that even postnatal makeup or cosmetic alterations struggle to conceal. This particular mole is located where the 'matchmaker’s mole' typically appears, and such a mole is often not associated with beauty in the conventional sense. In our cultural context, moles are frequently thought to influence one’s personality, career, and fate. The existence of this mole in this spot represents a minimal defiance against the notion of 'beauty' and a subtle disruption of demands of 'flawlessness.'"

The so-called matchmaker's mole is a large mole, located above the mouth (ideally on the right, but either side is okay). The association appears to be related to the belief that people with moles above their mouth are said to be great talkers, and thus would make great lawyers - or matchmakers.