Artist Review: Liu Ye
1 year, 11 months By Allyson
In: Allyson Hibbard | Artist Review | Asian | Children | Chinese | Contemporary Chinese Art | Liu Ye | china | contemporary art
Today’s artist review is of Liu Ye. I happened across his stuff while leafing through an old issue of Artforum International. The reason why his work stood out to me was because it was an image of a cartoony looking figure that was advertising his exhibition. This is unusual for Artforum because they generally show things that are Artsy Fartsy looking and require lots of thought to figure out what the heck it was created for.
But the image appearing for Ye was a simple Chinese girl figure, wrapped up in warm clothes standing out in the snow with a suitcase done in illustration style. So I looked up Mister Ye on he internet to find some more images of his work. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a reoccurring theme. Lots of images of Asian child-like figures shown with simple backgrounds. Some of them nude, but a lot of them not.
His work reminds me of when children draw images. They often pick just the one character they want to portray and show very little else in the drawing. This got me to thinking some more. Why is this artist, who seems to be creating such simplistic images, getting showcased in this magazine?
I think the artist is attempting to show innocence through the eyes of a child. How a child sees the world. So what about the nudity? Well at some point children do notice that stuff. My own six year old has noticed that I have breasts and she doesn’t and wanted to know why. Ha ha.
Something that is vastly missing from this Chinese artist’s work is any sort of political statement which seems to be a popular subject in contemporary Chinese art. The other thing that kind of popped into my mind is that his choice for these pieces to appear they way they do is purposeful. These images are not small though the subjects appear that way. Many of his oil paintings are done on canvases that are 80 + inches tall. The shear size of that makes a statement.
Over all I like Ye’s work. I like the faces in particular. They are something that kind of tickles your fancy. I get the same feeling from his work ask I get when I see a small child talking or playing. I particularly like the images that have large heads with somewhat realistic features, but the bodies are smaller. I don’t so much like the ones that are completely cartoony with perfectly oval heads. But I’m happy I came across this artist. If you would like to see more work by this artist you can check him out at Sperone Westwater.
Always,
Allyson
PS. Thanks for reading.
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