Liu Ye- Gun

Gun
2001–2002
Oil on canvas
72 x 144 in.
Source:http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/mahjongartists/index.html

Orange sky...
I didn't see the gun first time I walked by it... now it makes more sense... or not...
The sky is sooo orange, even the little girl is inflamed with the orangeness of it. All cute and plump, sitting on what appears to be a tree stump with ribbons in her hair. or maybe just a trunk of a very tall tree that got cut off, because from this perspective, she seems to be somewhere very high up, close to the sky, so close that she is bathing in the orange light.

I like the fuzziness of the pine greens. fuzziness creates a soft imagery, like something of an imaginary imagery. Yet it is interesting that the overpowering huge space and impressive color of the sky at the same time compliment the imagery and eats up the imagery. By eating up I mean everything is tinted with this orangeness and that the landscape for example on the left lower corner of the painting is completely eat up by the dense orangeness that only the form of a mountain landscape and be barely visible.

i think the gun is what takes me back to reality. before seeing the gun, the painting is all very "Alice in wonderful" for me. but after seeing the gun, I suddenly don't know what to do with the painting anymore.

The gun makes this cute painting so sad. the way the little girl face away from us, holding a gun, suggest some sort of an impending doom or battle she is anticipating and she needs the gun to protect herself. She's just sitting there, waiting, for something terrible to happen. the overwhelming orange sky might bring in the implication of storminess, it's said to be the color of the sky before a storm. the fact that everything in the painting is tinted with the orange hue explains that nothing in that world can escape from what's coming, and the best one can do is prepare. The tiny girl sits there, waiting for the monster that's somewhere inside the opaque orangeness