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What happens when a painting becomes an object you live with?
Yiwei Gallery is delighted to introduce a special collaboration between artist Sun Yao and Chinese design brand PUSU (璞素): Condensed Radiance (凝光), a limited-edition standing candleholder that brings contemporary painting into the rituals of everyday life.
For this project, Sun Yao extends the visual language of his celebrated Zenith series beyond the canvas. At the heart of each candleholder is a solid wooden panel, individually hand-painted by the artist.
Rather than mechanically reproducing an image, Sun paints every panel by hand, making each work different in composition, brushwork, and rhythm. No two pieces are alike—every candleholder is a unique original that carries the artist's direct touch.
The painted panel is framed within a circular screen that transforms candlelight into an ever-changing composition of light and shadow. As the flame flickers, the brushstrokes come alive, creating a meditative dialogue between painting, sculpture, and light.
Entirely handcrafted in the PUSU workshop, every candleholder is forged, heated, and hammered by hand. The iron frame carries subtle variations that speak to the material's journey through heat and time, making each edition uniquely its own.
Its three-legged base draws inspiration from the elegant structural principles of traditional Chinese furniture joinery. The gentle curves create both stability and lightness, while every hammer mark becomes a quiet record of craftsmanship—echoing the themes that run throughout Sun Yao's practice: time, nature, transformation, and the enduring relationship between humanity and the cosmos.
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About PUSU:
PUSU, founded in 2011 by designer Chen Yanfei in Shanghai, is a representative Chinese brand of original furniture and lifestyle products. PUSU, meaning simplicity, draws its spiritual design philosophy from a classic quote by the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi: “Simplicity, the unique beauty with which nothing under the heavens can rival”, bridging traditional Chinese literati aesthetics with contemporary design language to continuously explore expressions of Eastern living aesthetics in a contemporary context.
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