Artist depicts the often unnoticed side of life as she makes the ordinary special, Wang Ru reports.

On the first day of 2016, artist Yu Kun launched an experiment. She started making a motion graph about her daily life every day and posted it on her WeChat account under the name Yugongzi.

Yu, 37, had recently returned to China after graduating from La Poudriere film school in France in 2015. Consequently, she was a little confused about her choice of career.

After just two months, at the end of 2015, she decided to leave her job as an animation teacher at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, choosing instead to become a freelance illustrator and animation director.

The aim of the motion graph was to show what happened to her over the course of the year that followed this momentous decision.

Initially, at least, it turned out that, when she finished the task, nothing had really changed a great deal. However, in 2018, she was persuaded by a friend to hold an exhibition in Beijing about the motion graphs she had created two years earlier. Her work attracted the attention of Tu Zhigang, editor-in-chief of a Chinese publisher, Pan Press. Tu decided to help Yu publish a book about motion graphs, which was released last year.

The rewards were more spiritual than monetary in the beginning. The online recognition of the experiment, however, enhanced her self-confidence. "It allowed me to applaud myself," she says, noting that it kick-started a spell of productive creativity.

"As an introvert, I wanted to interact with people, but was too afraid to do so. Showing my work was a circuitous way for me to establish a relationship with the world," she adds.

Later, she created more illustrative and animated works, touching many with her careful observations on life and the subtle feelings she expresses in them.

Her profile was raised further when, in 2020, she was invited by The Beijing News to produce a regular animated comic strip depicting daily life. It appears on the publication's official app and WeChat account. The characters in her cartoons look like ancient Chinese, wearing traditional clothes, but they obviously live a modern life.

"I thought the contrast would be amusing," Yu says. "You can imagine a person from long ago holding a soft drink can in their hand. It would be more memorable than a modern person doing it."

The design also comes from her appreciation of ancient style. With her father specializing in drawing traditional Chinese paintings, she has been immersed in the genre since childhood. "Even when I buy home furnishings, I prefer ancient style. I really like that," says Yu.

She depicts the tiny aspects of life that we often take for granted. For example, one cartoon shows her character moving books to the bedside to read later, but she ends up spending the whole night on her phone. Another shows her going to a cinema in the afternoon and walking out after dark, feeling disoriented.

Yu says she has a special interest in the small things that happen in daily life. "I really like to find moments that people may often ignore in their daily lives, and enlarge them, so that people can realize how valuable such moments truly are."

She receives feedback from her readers, some of which has surprised and influenced her.

"I used to think that some subtle feelings I portrayed were uniquely my own, and wondered if I was too sensitive. But when I draw them, others tell me that the work strikes a chord with them, then my narcissism collapses and I realize that I am not that different from other people," says Yu.

"It gives me a strange sense of warmth, and makes me feel like I don't need to be too scared or too proud facing the world. That's really good."

This attitude gave the artist further inspiration. "It makes me realize that I don't need to worry too much about what anyone thinks about my cartoons when I create them. That is not arrogance. Creators just need to experience their true emotions and express them in their works, so that the sincerity will touch others," says Yu.

Han Rui, a fan of Yu, agrees. "I got to know Yu after watching her cartoon on The Beijing News. I then recommended it to my friends, who say they like it too. I find her work interesting, and a lot of it seems to depict my daily life."

Yu picked up her animation skills at La Poudriere and was one of the directors of To the Bright Side. This animation, which was shown earlier this year in cinemas in China, is an anthology adapted from seven picture books and focuses on the lives of ordinary people.

The story Yu directed was about a stall selling sweet soup in Guangdong province. Yu visited the place, observed how such stalls were operated, and integrated those details into the film.

"My creations should contain what I experienced and felt, or I cannot render the true feeling for the audience," she says.

Yu first became interested in animation through her father. He gave her a collection of animated films made by the National Film Board of Canada when she was a middle school student. She then learned illustration and animation at Renmin University of China, before attending La Poudriere.

When she was about to graduate in France, she surprised her teachers.

When they were assessing her work for her graduation, they found all of Yu's creations were set in a single room, instead of in various places.

"It seems that my focus is always what happens in daily life, especially in a room," Yu explains. "I can find magnificent moments in daily life. Sometimes we don't realize how important such moments are until recalling the memory. We may find that it was just such a moment that changed our lives."

Now her focus is on creating a graphic novel about a 33-day hike she undertook in 2015 on the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route that ends in Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of Spain. She started the hike alone on her 30th birthday. It was a time when she was caught between two worlds, hesitating about whether to go back to China to live with her family or stay in France for a better chance of a career in animation.

She talked with many hikers during the trip, and was inspired by a Belgian dessert chef, who told her it was not such a serious decision. She remembers being told "the Earth is round and one day you'll come back". It was this way of thinking that urged her to return to China in the end.

"I met different people every day during the trip. They shared their worries and experiences with me and have influenced me a lot. I believe it's a good idea to share the stories from the journey with others," says Yu.