Transfixing Eternal Time, Dancing Ink Butterflies Gently Tapping on the Paper － Eternity and Transience in YANG Chung Ming’ s “ Beyond Ink”

YANG Chung-Ming, Flora of Formosa: Unspoken Chapter, Handmade Plant-Dyed Paper (Detail)

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YANG Chung-Ming’s works have always intertwined the elegance of literature, the nobility of life, and his relentless exploration of fine art prints. Since his youth, he has delved deeply into the technique of mezzotint, showcasing a velvety darkness that gradually reveals delicate and rich grayscale layers—like silver pebbles emerging in the night. His series of works, often initiated by textual narratives before image creation, are defined as “landscapes born from words.”

In 2019, the final chapter of his “Timeless” series used mezzotint to interpreting an infinite, everlasting world which inspired by literature. He posed an inquiry towards cosmic: how do we measure the length of life, and what lies “behind time”? Could a different form of eternity exist on the reverse side of time’s constant flow? Quoting Taiwanese artist CHENG Tsun-shing ’s description of poet Chou Meng-Tieh’s recitation—”Reduplication and repeated rhyme, lingering, haunting; incessantly the sound of chanting cascades through the ripples of time……” ¹—as an entry point, YANG transforms the backside of a delicate watch dial into a mezzotint printing plate. The increasingly dissolved dots layer into timeless imagery, which through printing become frozen glimmers of eternity on paper. “Timeless” also explores the interplay between the plate and paper, transforming the “matrix” into part of the work itself and probing the dual nature of time’s form and meaning.

Beyond mezzotint, YANG’s studies of printmaking extend to handmade paper and watermarks. Since 2019, he has been collaborating with the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute. They experimented with uninked paper to create multi-layered watermark images that become visible under light. The overlapping fibers reveal nuanced patterns. He also reinterprets Japanese botanist Iwasaki Tsunemasa’s botanical supplement to the ancient book “Compendium of Materia Medica” into the “Flora of Formosa: Timeless Narrative: Walking Through the 1828” series. Using vintage wooden specimen frames as artwork frames, he highlights the intersection of scientific and artistic plant research. In “YANG Chung-Ming: Beyond Ink Tour — 2025 Karlsruhe, Germany” exhibition at Gallery de sol, this series is featured. In his practice, paper is no longer just a medium but becomes the image itself through interwoven fibers.

Simultaneously, the “B612” series is once again showcasing at Gallery de sol. Inspired by the rose left on planet B612 in “Le Petit Prince,” the space mimics volcanic rock textures. The handmade paper rose “B612 fig.1” is pinned with insect needles sitting next to “B612 fig.2” where its imprint appears on a copperplate after exposure to sulfur corrosion in Yangmingshan. This series illustrates YANG’s mastery in reversing the subject-object relationship between matrix and paper.

In this exhibition at Gallery de sol, YANG presents “Flora of Formosa: Eternal Flight,” using handmade paper and watermarking without ink. The butterfly-like paper casts shifting shadows under light, evoking the flutter of wings. If the “Timeless Narrative: Walking Through the 1828” explores paper as subject, and the “B612” series examines the reversal between plate and paper, then the exhibited works “Unspeakable Shadow” and “Unspoken Chapter” raise a question: can ink exist since the beginning, without printing?

Exhibition View: “YANG Chung-Ming: Beyond Ink Tour — 2025 Karlsruhe, Germany”.

These two works blend traditional papermaking with logwood plant dyes. Each butterfly is in its original uncut form, preserving the fibers and edges of handmade paper. Letterpress prints fragments land on their wings. Using insect pins, the butterflies are delicately fixed to paper or branches, appearing as if resting under light and shadow. YANG also incorporates charred books from Songlin Bookstore—a victim of fire on Taipei’s Guling Book Street—transforming carbon-blackened pages into a part of his works. As they alight on translucent shoji doors, they resemble literary ink strokes on manuscript paper. A gentle breath from the viewer sends them fluttering, fragile and drifting. Behind the door is YANG’s latest piece “The Dream of a Litterateur,” showcasing ink butterflies shaded from white to black under a glass dome. Notably, the dome’s base is not wood, but tightly rolled, fire-scorched paper inscribed with the phrase: “Between lips and kiss,” symbolizing the butterfly’s gentle tap like a kiss upon a withered branch. As if lifting the dome will release a swirl of dancing butterflies. In contrast with the eternity explored in “Timeless,” this piece evokes life’s fleeting nature—fragile as a butterfly’s descent. The contrast reflects Baudelaire’s contemplation of beauty: “Modernity is to find the poetic in the historical, the eternal in the ephemeral.” ² Beauty contains duality: the eternal essence, and the changing modernity. Like humans, we long for eternity and reason, yet live within fleeting moments.

YANG Chung-Ming, Flora of Formosa: Shadow Blooming, Watermark, Handmade Paper (Detail)

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