“I wish everything in this world were round,” writes Yayi in a project statement.
Yayi is a Shanghai-based artist who spends her days designing, doodling, and searching for inspiration in the trivial details of life. Her unique style is characterized by minimal colors, collage elements, and perhaps most distinct of all, an assortment of circles. But why circles?
“I just like it,” Yayi shrugs. “I’ve always thought circles were such a mysterious shape. They’re soft yet plump. They can be energetic or they can be lethargic.”
“希望这个世界上的一切都是圆圆的”，是 Yayi 给某个系列写介绍时说的。目前生活工作于上海的她，日常画画、做设计，采集生活里能够感动自己的细枝末节，画着圆圆圈圈，配上简单的颜色和一些拼贴元素，就形成了她独特的风格。
但真要为“圆”找出个所以然来的话，Yayi 却说，其实只是因为喜欢这个形态罢了。“一直觉得圆是个微妙的形态，是柔软的、饱满的，有时活泼有时慵懒的感觉。”
Yayi describes her process of drawing circles within the confines of a rectangular frame as “daydreaming within a sequestered universe of my own.”
In Passing By, a series of short animated clips, she presents everyday scenes (with circles, of course) from three different perspectives: as a lover of idle walks, as a lover of parks, as a lover of stories. The series is intimate yet playful, inspired by her observations of strolling around the city. From a lone trashcan in an empty shopping plaza to a flashing traffic sign lighting up the darkness of night, Yayi reimagines mundane settings as delightful works of art.
在一方方的小世界里画圆，Yayi 形容是“时不时在自己臆想的‘断层世界’里做着‘清醒梦’”。
以“遛弯儿爱好者”、“公园爱好者”和“小故事爱好者”的身份来分类的《路过》系列，Yayi 放上了一些脑回路的场景画面，非常随意，也相当个人化。在生活里看到的某一个场景和画面的延展，比如凌晨商场里的垃圾桶，夏日深夜空旷马路边被交通警示灯反射过的禁止通行路牌，等等。这些过去的画面，被 Yayi 捕捉在记忆里，又重新翻出来构图创作。
For times when Yayi wants to create but isn’t feeling particularly creative, collage is her go-to medium. “It’s just me piecing together scattered visuals to try and jolt my brain into coming up with new ideas. That’s why I titled one of my collage series Losing My Mind.”
而在想创作又没有想法的时候，Yayi 会玩拼贴。她的回答很温柔得可爱：“算是通过把零碎的画面重组来刺激自己有些新的想法。所以我把我拼贴的系列叫做‘失心疯’。”
In her collage works, the elements Yayi selects reveal a fascination with films about space. “I suppose there really are quite a lot of movies about space that I’ve loved over the years,” she says, “from A Trip to the Moon (1902), to the Soviet-era Solaris (1972), to the more recent Coherence (2013).”
She also cites a love for the work of installation artists Olafur Eliasson and Cai Guoqiang. “I recently watched a documentary about Cai Guoqiang’s Sky Ladder. His ongoing Project for Extraterrestrials series is also quite interesting; in it, he plays with the idea of space exploration but through the innocence of a young boy. All of his works are extremely impressive.”
殊不知，拼贴的素材或灵感来源，背后都会或多或少地融入她沉迷的星球和宇宙的元素。“从 1902 年的《月球旅行纪》，到后来苏联的《飞向太空》……再到近几年的《彗星来的那一夜》。关于宇宙和星球题材的电影，仔细想想我喜欢的还真的挺多的。”
她毫不掩饰她对当代装置艺术家 Olafur Eliasson 的钟爱，还有蔡国强。“最近看的纪录片有蔡国强的《天梯》。他用男孩天真的一面去表达对外星世界的探索，做的一系列‘为外星人做的计划’行为和装置艺术都是让人印象非常深刻的作品。”
Her delicate recollections and observations of life, along with her love and longing for outer space, gives Yayi’s circles an ingenious romance.
Depending on the viewer, Yayi’s circles can take on different meanings. Some could see them as symbolic of deeper ideas. Others may just enjoy them simply as circles. Less than a bridge between artist and viewer, for Yayi, art is “an outlet for my own emotions, and hopefully something that resonates with the viewer’s emotions.”
对生活细腻的感知与记忆，对宇宙星球的喜爱与憧憬，让 Yayi 的圆形作品显得玲珑且浪漫。
这些圆，可以被赋予形形色色的含义，也可以干干净净地理解为圆本身。要说 Yayi 所想要搭建的那座桥梁，不过是“我自己的情绪出口，同样也希望大家解读出自己的情绪。”
