Liu Ye Composition with Votalin 25, 2009

Taking an everyday-life object as a central part of his composition, Liu Ye's painting employs both the formal qualities of the small box of pills with its clean lines, as well as the anecdotal associations a viewer may attach to the type of medication pictured on Composition with Votalin 25. Placed centrally on a checkered blue background, the box is white and yellow, with a narrow band in red lining the left edge. A darker patch on the right side of the box, read as shadow, adds a three-dimensional quality, even as the painting gives no other indication of space. The writing on the box identifies the contents as anti-inflammatory, anti-pain medication, suggesting we are perhaps looking at a table with someone's pills.