Portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Artist Hong Yi (previously features here), created a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, a noted Burmese politician, out of 2,000 white carnations. The carnations were cut and placed in cups of of food dye, then allowed 40 hours to reach their maximum color intensity. The artist chose to construct Kyi's portrait out of flowers for, in the 2011 film, The Lady, the politician's father is portrayed as placing white carnations behind Kyi's ear shortly before his assassination. The artist claims to have always looked up to Aung San Suu Kyi. On her blog, Yi states, "[Kyi] is a woman who has sacrificed her personal happiness for her people." She goes on to explain how this inspired her work. Yi explains that, "I didn't sleep the whole night thinking of how to capture [Aung San Suu Kyi's] great aura, her dedication, strength, determination, compassion, intelligence, courage, poise and gracefulness in a portrait. I wanted a portrait that not only captures [Aung San Suu Kyi's] political eminence but also her beauty and love for her father, and his for her…Therefore, I chose to use the colour red to represent love, passion, sacrifice and blood. The large numbers of flowers represents humans. This is the first time I'm using live objects - flowers - for my project...flowers, like humans, eventually die. This piece celebrates this little time we have here on earth called life." Hong Yi's installation portrait was on display at the Sutera Magellan Golf and Country Club for five days before heat caused the flowers to wilt.