Red, Yellow and Blue is Liu Ye’s reinterpretation of two painting elements: the juxtaposition of Mondrian symbols and a girl with round head, creating a surrealist world which looks “real” but is “unreal”. Classic red, yellow, and blue are taken as the creative tone in the picture, which stems from the artist’ knowledge of common creative vocabulary of Mondrian and Bauhaus schools during his study in Germany. The little girl in the painting is cartoonish, standing in front of the work for no apparent reason. The work seemingly shows that the artist is tracing back his childhood memories, but actually he hides all kinds of emotional expressions in the adult world, presenting a sweet and sentimental ambience. In this work, the artist mainly discusses the pure relationship between line and color, and follows the strict aesthetic proportion. Through the combination of a lovely girl and pure visual languages, he succeeds in striking a balance between vision and spirit.

(Edited by Li Hanning & Yang Zhige, 2021)