In the "New Plants Grown from Black Water Series", the black water alludes to both the external environment and inner psychological circumstances. In the pictures, the filthy and turbid black water can be obscure and unclear, or whipped up into forceful eddies, like a black hole that can swallow anything in its path. The central figures of these works are the new plants that draw nourishment from this environment. They come in various shapes, from points to rings, hooks, grooves and rails, but they are all sturdy and solitary. Their sharp outlines are like wordless accusations, and their isolation from time and space are an allusion to the future of the environment. When people see "Black Water", they think of the fierce waters of hell in Dante's "Divine Comedy", the deepest, darkest black and boiling like tar. The souls being punished in that water are not sinners but intellectuals and creators of art.

Yang Ren-ming witnessed the transition from the 1980s to the 1990s, which heralded the most drastic shocks and transformations Taiwan had seen in forty years: the end of martial law, the lifting of the ban on political parties, media freedoms, a changed relationship with Mainland China, widespread street demonstrations and the emergence of environmental issues reshaped politics, the economy and human relations. The 1990s was a period of unprecedented growth in the Taiwanese art scene. New art groups grew out of changes in the local environment and clashes of culture. It was this creative environment that produced the abstract contemporary artist Yang Ren-ming. Yang presents his own conceptual self-conflict in his work "New Plants Grown from Black Water – Railing", where a rail-like barrier becomes the center of the image, which also seems to allude to the complexity of thought.