Yun Bai at Bert Green

Back to Downtown LA we go, to that corner of Main and 5th that has become quite a hotbed of yummy contemporary art. On the northwest corner is one of my faves, Pharmaka, and on the other side of 5th sits Bert Green Fine Art, a very cool gallery that always has some really challenging work. Bert himself can usually be found at the reception desk, and he's a great little repository of contemporary art knowledge.

Bert reps several terrific artists, including David Meanix (the guy behind Claire's celebrated art on "Six Feet Under"), John Scane (whose donkey series is on BG's site, but I really love Scane's abstract work, which you can see here) and Yun Bai, whose piece The Beauty of Life Is Its Incompleteness is shown here. Her work is so beautiful, it makes me dizzy.

There's not currently a Bai show, but Bert always has several of her works hanging around the office. They are so striking, with bright, playful colors, and depictions of flowers in a somewhat Asian-inspired design, reflective of her Chinese heritage. But upon closer inspection, the flowers are made from images culled from commercial pornography. Whaaa?? Yes, once you get up verrry close to the work, you'll see the petals are comprised of images that are probably inappropriate for me to describe here. At first they are all sweet and innocent, then you discover imagery that is really kind of difficult. They're really challenging, and I love it!

Of course this is influenced by events in Bai's life, circumstances that led her to be involved in the port industry while a college student. Click here to read more about Bai's story. There's also a great interview with Yun ("Yunny Bunny") at White Hot Magazine.

Bai does have an upcoming show at BGFA - Sept 13- Oct 28 - I don't know if she's showing new work for the "Porn Flowers" series, but whatever her new work is, it'll get me back to that corner of 5th and Main.