Lauren YS – Jīngshén Triptych

Lauren YS is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work is influenced by multiple stages of focus, both geographically and in practice. With dynamic bouts in academics, literature and writing, teaching, illustration, and animation leading up to her arrival in the urban art sphere, the influences of these phases of her own career add up to a robust style of murals and fine art. Lauren's work is influenced by dreams, mythology, death, comics, love, sex, psychedelia, animation and her Asian-American heritage.

The drawings in Jīngshén Triptych are based off Chinese myths and deities, which came Lauren's long-burning desire to draw the deity Guanyin, long hailed as China’s genderfluid god of benevolence. From there, they expanded their research to include Meng Po, the goddess of the underworld who serves a special soup that will let the partaker forget all of their sins before they enter. Finally, there is an imagining of the Jiangshi, the Chinese hopping vampire, who is also more like a zombie figure. They wear tattered clothing from the Qing Dynasty (the fashion from which I am totally obsessed with) and absorb people's life forces, or qi. 

Read our interview with the artist to learn more about Lauren and their art practice.

Artworks will appear below from 7:00am on Friday, 8 October.