O Art, where is it you are going? One dot, slowly becomes the beginning and end of all creation.

by Li Yuan-Chia

Li Yuan-Chia started developing his language of art when he founded the Ton Fan Group with other artists of his generation in 1956. He once mentioned that his art was influenced by the Chinese philosopher Laozi and the basic concepts of Chinese calligraphy, and that the colors in his work were selected to capture the essence of Chinese porcelain and cave paintings. This attitude towards painting is vividly expressed in the art he created before he emigrated to Europe. From the beauty of the lines in traditional Chinese calligraphy, Li Yuan-Chia realized how to create pure abstract art, transforming the complex into something simple and shaping his worldview. Li Yuan-Chia developed his own unique art language with these beliefs, and he was encouraged by this painting style to pursue conceptual creation in his art.

After emigrating to Europe, Li Yuan-Chia's art underwent considerable changes, but he eventually returned to his own fundamental ideals for creation—dots and lines. He considered the dot, a singular point in space, to be the beginning and end of everything, which includes the core of his creativity. Li Yuan-Chia strove to express the essence of all things in his art; the dot was the main character in his painting and the line was used to convey the rhythm and fluidity depicted within the spaces of the painting. In this seemingly simple artwork, Li Yuan-Chia has created what he thinks is the cleanest and purest form of art. Although this style of art wasn't in the mainstream in Taiwan back then, this unique art work has produced the fantastic visual illusions you see in the paintings. Li Yuan-Chia introduced the possibility of incorporating Chinese calligraphy lines into abstract art, and his pioneering concepts were conceived long before any of the artists of his contemporaries did so. Li Yuan-Chia is lauded as a progressive avant garde artist that created paintings which had never been seen before.