Liu Ye’s Specially For You (Olympic 2008) was commissioned for a special charity event in honour of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. An iconic image, the present composition appears in editioned prints by the artist, which feature the exact same vision of a colorful gridded background and a chubby-cheeked girl, with the five colored balls in the young protagonist’s hairpiece representing the colored rings of the Olympic symbol. The cheerfully choreographed composition straddles figuration and geometric abstraction, realism and post-modern appropriation, manifesting as a superlative paradigm from Liu Ye’s oeuvre.

Born in 1964, Liu Ye studied first at the China School of Arts and Crafts and then at the Berlin University of the Arts in Germany. While in Europe, he was heavily influenced by the Dutch artists – Mondrian in particular. Elements of Mondrian’s rigorous geometric abstraction, with its severe straight lines and balanced quadrilateral compositions, began appearing in Liu Ye’s works early on in his career, with Liu Ye inserting representations of actual paintings by Mondrian in the background of his canvases. More importantly, going one step further from direct appropriation, Liu Ye internalizes and assimilates Mondrian’s emphasis on visual theories such as balance and geoMetricas l partitioning into his non-abstract compositions, employing strict and rigorous strategies of delineation, segmentation, portioning and partitioning of space. As the artist himself declares: “The appearance of Mondrian’s paintings within my own paintings is spiritual. His paintings are so pure, relying only on the most basic of colors, and vertical and horizontal lines. I, too, want to engage in the problem of purity”. While his works are categorically non-abstract, Liu Ye utilizes the geometric outlines of objects such as windows, tables, paintings or even limbs of figures and their shadows for use as line and form, mapping out compositions that are imbued with precise balance and correspondence. Such efforts result in a curious tension and interaction within the compositional framework, lending Liu Ye’s canvases a sense of still yet dynamic harmony and equilibrium.

Such geoMetricas l strategies were already employed in the 1990s in compositions that featured characters such as little girls, female teachers, Miffy the bunny, etc. In the 2000s, Liu Ye made a conscious turn towards abstraction which entailed a gradual exclusion of narrative; in the artist’s own words: “The art is purified. By reducing the emotion, narrative, and story present in my earlier works, the work must rely on the inherent elements of painting, such as proportion, colour, and composition”. In 2007, Liu Ye embarked on the series of the bamboo – a motif used often as a metaphor for the integrity of the literati in traditional Chinese art. The bamboo is thus a well-chosen motif that thematically symbolises integrity and purity whilst also visually exuding geoMetricas l purity via the stark line of the bamboo stalk. The Bamboo series later paved the way for Liu Ye’s also iconic Book Painting series, in which the artist likewise toys with the borders of geometric abstraction through simplified and tranquil representation of books. [CM1]

Coinciding with both the Bamboo series and the Books series, Specially For You (Olympic 2008) is a paradigmatic work demonstrating the core modus operandi of Liu Ye’s visual lexicon: concise geometric arrangements, flashes of rhythmic color arrangements, and an exquisite attention to detail that result in colorful, optically engaging works. As the original incipient canvas work that gave birth to editioned prints of the same motif and image, Specially For You (Olympic 2008) is a landmark work that exudes the timless, whimsically enchanting poeticism unique to Liu Ye’s increasingly acclaimed oeuvre.

《特別為您（2008年奧運會）》是劉野獲邀為一個紀念2008年北京奧運會特別慈善活動而專門創作的作品。畫中有一個站在繽紛格子背景前的小女孩，她雙頰胖乎乎、圓鼓鼓，戴著一件髮飾，上面裝飾著象徵奧運五環的五彩圓形，這個標誌形象曾出現在藝術家的限量版畫裡。精心佈局的構圖洋溢著興高采烈的氛圍，在具象與幾何抽象、現實主義與後現代挪用之間遊走不定，不愧是劉野的出色傑作。

劉野生於1946年，先後就讀中國工藝美術學校和德國柏林藝術大學。他在歐洲留學期間深受荷蘭藝術家啟發，尤其是蒙德里安。蒙德里安風格強烈的幾何抽象圖案、由嚴謹的直線構成的四邊形開始出現在劉野的早期創作中，並多以整幅畫的形態出現在背景裡。更重要的是，他比直接挪用更進一步，將蒙德里安強調的平衡和幾何分割等視覺理論內化吸收，用於自己的非抽象作品，引入嚴謹的空間勾畫、分隔、比例和佈局。正如藝術家稱：「蒙德里安的畫出現在我的畫，有精神上的意義。他的畫那麼單純——最基本的顏色和垂直水平線，我也想解决單純的問題。」儘管劉野的作品被視為非抽象類別，然而他卻用窗戶、桌子、掛畫甚至人物四肢和影子的幾何外形作為線條和形體，湊成恰到好處的精妙構圖。這種手法令畫面浮現一股難以形容的張力，各種元素相互映襯，為作品注入平靜的能量，以及活潑的協調和平衡。

上述幾何手法早在1990年代以小女孩、女教師、米菲為題材的作品中出現；到了千禧年代，劉野下意識將風格轉向抽象，逐步將叙事特質排除在外，因為他希望「儘量讓它更純粹一點，把早期情緒、叙述、情節比較多的地方，減少到依靠繪畫本身的元素，例如比例、色調、結構」。2007年，他開始創作竹子系列，而竹子在傳統中國藝術裡寄寓文人風骨。因此以竹為題其實是經過深思熟慮，涵義上，它代表正直和純潔，視覺上，簡潔的竹竿還原了幾何的純粹。這種宋元兩朝山水的常見題材，更加突顯劉野創作生涯的新方向──將目光投放於傳統中國繪畫，追求東方藝術和西方抽象二者的交融與碰撞。竹子系列為後來同樣重要的書籍系列奠下鋪墊，他以簡單淡淨的手法描繪書本，遊走在幾何抽象的邊緣。

本作與竹子系列、書籍系列誕生於同一時期，體現劉野視覺語彙中的核心創作手法，即精準的幾何結構，跳脫的用色節奏，以及細緻入微的畫工，組成在色彩和視覺上引人入勝的作品。《特別為您（2008年奧運會）》是最初的畫布原作，採用相同主題和構圖的限量版畫隨後印製，展現劉野筆下古靈精怪、雋永迷人的獨特詩意，而這位藝術家的作品在近年亦愈漸廣受讚賞。