Meet Sun Bai | Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sun Bai and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sun, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
Since I started being a full time illustrator/comic author, I work every day at my home studio. As the work of illustration is often intense, I worked late at night, even on weekend evenings at the beginning. I always wanted everything to be perfect in my work. It was a lot of physical and psychological stress.

Later, I started to make efforts to organize both work and life rhythm.

I also learned to accept the imperfections which can actually enrich my work.

I leave more time in the evening to read, watch the movies, and seeing my friends on the weekends, I make my grocery list and my meal list for the whole week, it saves a lot of time.

I found that it is more efficient and I am also less stressed.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m illustrator and comic author, in my work I seek intimate narrative spaces, I tend to depict an “amused sadness” in the scenes of everyday life. Having first studied painting in Shenyang, the city in northeast China where I come from, I came to France to continue my studies in Fine Arts. I realized that the storytelling is what I am most interested in, I discovered the world of fanzines and started self-publishing projects after my master degree which brought me closer to the universe of alternative comics and illustration.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting your town in France, what are some spots they could take them to?
I live and work in Lille, a city in northern France, it is a melting pot city, with strong worker class culture. There are quite a few pretty squares and museums, the cultural life is also quite rich.

I recommend the old town « Vieux Lille », a beautiful historic district, we can go for a stroll there and visit Hospice Comtesse, a small but charming museum in the old town, which was an hospital in middle age with a lovely aromatic garden in it.

We can go to an estaminet——a kind of restaurant/bar in northern France and Belgium, to have a Welsh——a traditional dish in the region made by cheese, beer, bread accompanied by french fries. In Sunday, I will take my friends to the Wazemmes market——local vegetables, second-hand goods and the best cheesecake in Lille, also a beer in the terrace.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

I am lucky to be surrounded by people who support me. My family in China who have encouraged my decisions since I was a child. My friends who now live all over the world and with whom I still talk a lot. My partner who is also an illustrator and comic author, we share a lot of things in common, and also my editors who always reassure me when I have doubts.

Website: https://sunbai.net/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/sunbai__