Artist and Cal State Fullerton Professor of Art, Lawrence T. Yun will be featured at the Palos Verdes Art Center (PVAC) beginning December 1 in an exhibition entitled “Lawrence T. Yun: Engineered Botanicals,” a survey of the artist’s extensive catalog of botanical watercolors from 1999–2019.
While the PVAC show marks the first time the botanicals have been shown together, Yun has exhibited his work in galleries and museums throughout California, including Bergamot Station’s Patricia Correia Gallery (Santa Monica), and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG). His paintings are part of several private and public permanent collections and have been seen in films such as “Daddy Day Care” (Columbia Pictures), “Meet the Fockers” (Universal Pictures), and” Transformers” (DreamWorks).
Born and raised in Taiwan, Yun graduated with an emphasis in packaging design from Fu Hsin Arts School (Taipei) in 1988 and moved to Los Angeles in 1990 to continue his education. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in drawing/painting and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from Cal State Long Beach. At CSUF, he specializes in teaching watercolor, pencil rendering, two-dimensional design, and illustration.
His paintings are colorful and impeccably rendered much like Yun himself. The always effusive and well-attired Yun revels in a good story and often welcomes colleagues into his office with a cup of espresso or chocolate treat.
In the artist’s statement for the exhibition at PVAC, he notes that while the tradition of flower painting is China is revered, in the West, it is often considered little more than “eye candy.” With his background and training, Yun is easily able to fuse Eastern and Western cultural aesthetics in his work, inverting the “eye candy” label by including sly visual cues. The 51 botanical paintings in “Engineered Botanicals” first attempt to lull you with their lush foliage, crystalline color, and adept realism but these paintings are more than just pretty, they’re also subversive. A longer look reveals botanicals that are disquieting examples of the contradictions between man-made and natural phenomena, hinting at a genetically modified future where AI is omnipresent.
“Lawrence T. Yun: Engineered Botanicals” is on view from December 1, 2023 through January 6, 2024 at the Palos Verdes Art Center, with a public reception at 6 pm on December 1.
Read/hear more about Yun’s work:
“Professor wins international awards for watercolor pieces,” Daily Titan
“Nature Painting at the Municipal Art Gallery,” KCRW.com
“Lawrence Yun (Across the Divide),” (conference presentation) YouTube