About Me

Innyang Low painted many dragons in watercolor. He paints without preparatory sketches but with a clear image in his mind. The stroke of the brush is guided by the vital energy:
“When I paint, says Innyang Low, I visualize the movement of the dragon. The technique of watercolor allows me to give flexibility, movement and strength to the dragons. I never know when I’ll finish the dragon, but when I get to the dragon’s tail, I know it is finished. I always start with the head that gives the power, then the body and tail, but throughout the designing process I survey if the dragon has enough energy and power. If the dragon is sick, I stop. This is not a question of beauty or precision. The beauty for me means to be able to transcribe on paper my mental representation of the dragon as a symbol of strength and movement. When I cannot concentrate I go fishing. Contact with nature is very important. “
Although Innyang uses the traditional representation of the Chinese dragon, he renews it by the introduction of personal items like longer hair, sharper claws, whiskers longer, airbrush painting, a more complex and expressive movement. His dragons are often basic patterns that he integrates into his kinetic installations.
In the latest watercolor artworks like “The Dragon protects the forest house”, Innyang is inspiriting from different artistic streams and traditions. A protecting eye is looking upon a forest house. A Chinese dragon is protecting the water. He uses also prosaically elements of the region where he lives like this forest house. Innyang integrates elements of mythology and geometrical forms. Some influences are coming from surrealism, fantasy art and abstract art of Kandinsky. In some others artworks, the mythological subjects are constituted of many geometrical elements making a multicolor mosaic. Innyang integrates nude women who become allegorical and symbolic figures.

The performance of painted dragon, made in a continuous gesture on giant canvas, embodies the essence of the meaning of the movement for the artist Innyang Low. With broad and circular gestures, he plays the mythological power of the dragon. Beyond the performance, Innyang restores the primordial rhythm and vital movements of the universe, according to the principles of Taoist philosophy. Timeliness is proportional to the clarity of the mental image preformed. Innyang is less interested in the interpretation of the reality than the inner need that drives his actions. When you take the helicopter to see it from the highest point of view, you can see how Innyang is a great master of the dragon design and you can imagine what kind of experience is needed to perform a so big painting without preparatory sketch.

In Paris in 2000, he realized several artistic performances on the Bastille square: he painted two works with the dragon as a theme: one with ink on a 20-meter long cloth and the other with paint on canvas. His gestures, on this occasion, present a similarity with Buddhist and Taoist sacred dances.

Frank Popper wrote in an article: “His works or projects respond both to the kinetic tradition which is intended to herald technological and virtual art and, on the other hand, to the kinetic current which emphasizes vital energy. »

Inn-Yang Low’s ink dragon performances, performed in a flash of uninterrupted gesture and on gigantic canvases stretched across the floor, embody the essence of his concept of movement. By the breath of his ample and circular gestures, he animates the mythological energy of the dragon. Beyond the simple performance, Inn-Yang restores the primordial rhythm and vital movements that underlie the universe, according to the principles of Taoist philosophy. The speed of execution is proportional to the clarity of the preformed mental image. Inn-Yang is less interested in the interpretation of reality than in the inner necessity that animates his gesture.

In 2001, in Switzerland, one of his performances took place on the Place de la Pierre-à-voir in Saxon. The fabric laid on the ground measures 16 by 20 meters. The work was completed in two and a half hours.

In 2004 he realized another performance on the theme of the dragon at the Centre d’art Neuchâtel.

He has also realized a number of other performances in Poland (Krakow, Warsaw), Taiwan (Taipei, Tainan), France and Switzerland as part of the Polymanga Festival.

In 2011 the Professional School of Contemporary Arts celebrates its tenth anniversary. Another of its performances will take place on this occasion.

In November 2012, Inn-Yang Low is invited to present a new performance at the ETIUDA&ANIMA festival in Krakow. He made also a big scale performance for Infinitudes art festival in 2014 and also in Taipei and other cities in Taiwan.

His Installation Galaxy is in the same line of his performances, because he concentrates on the movement of the galaxies using light and air.

his most recent work, he uses the technique of cracked acrylic lacquer. 

The artist uses many layers of lacquer that overlap and crackle, giving the work an original finish. Inspired by Asian glazing and lacquering techniques, Innyang Low draws inspiration from these ancestral techniques and gives them a personal and contemporary interpretation.

my recent monumental paintings, including Imagination painted at the Lake Hotel in Taipei in 2017, I chose to use a background prepared with acrylic lacquer on large linen canvas. With the superimposition of multiple layers, the lacquer cracks and reveals the raw material. The pattern is then guided by these cracks. Shapes then emerge from the original material. For example, an elephant emerges from the pictorial matter and decomposes into infinite pixels. The eye of the animal looks at the spectator and questions him about the animal condition in this constantly changing world.
Everyone can imagine what they want in this painting. Dribbling and dripping underline the violence of the animal condition that human beings share with him on this planet going through multiple revolutions.

The elephant symbolizes the brute force and the memory of humanity which is more and more digitalized, which the pixels represent on the canvas.

Half marine, half terrestrial, the animal emerges from the water and the primordial nothingness. Glimmers of hope appear on the top of the canvas.
In the other composition, Imagination II, it is an abstract landscape à la Wiliam Turner, precursor of impressionism and abstract art. At the same time twilight and marine, this imaginary landscape conceals in it all the contradiction of our world tormented by contrary winds.

Turner represented vaporous landscapes on the borderline between abstract and figurative that stimulate the imagination of the viewer.
In other recent works of smaller size (70x70cm), I have chosen to pursue my research in the direction of abstraction. I am in line with Kandinsky’s research, especially on the spiritual level (Spirituality in art, and in painting in particular). The first initiator of abstraction, Fra Angelico, in San Marco, during the Renaissance, represented the divinity in the form of projections of paint on panels to symbolize the immanence of the divinity in the pictorial matter: In the middle of the debate on iconoclasm, Fra Angelico had decided to represent the divine by projections of paintings crossed by the divine energy.

It was then necessary to wait for Turner and Kandinsky to continue his research. Kandinsky explored the power of color on the deep consciousness of the human being. Written in 1910, Du Spirituel dans l’art and in painting in particular, draws lessons from his first abstract watercolor. After an outdoor painting session, Kandinsky finds himself in his studio and sees his canvas upside down at dusk. He does not recognize any pattern and this is the beginning of abstraction. He then continues his research on the power of symbolic forms, point and line on plane. After the theory of the colors developed in Du Spirituel dans l’art, he presents his theory of the forms which takes part of the same rigour and the same will to constitute the language of the pure means of art which, beyond appearances, will speak directly to the human soul. This is the key to understanding the whole movement of abstract art that will follow in the 20th and 21st centuries.

As an Asian artist, I am part of this reflection on symbolic forms and the power of color that allows to speak directly to the human soul. Color is a vibratory wave of light, its frequency can resonate with the vibrations of the human soul.

In the Chinese tradition, all is energy in the universe and the vibratory frequencies of the universe can resonate with those of the human being through pictorial matter since, as Einstein said, all matter is also energy. The long and meticulous preparation of the backgrounds with acrylic lacquer on canvas, lays the foundations of this research on matter. In my works, I recreate the original matter. I then add details of lines and shapes that structure this matter from the perfect void.
The spectator can then let himself be guided by the lines, the symbolic forms and the colors which resound in him according to his history and the meanders of his imagination.

My goal is not to create an exhaustive repertory of symbolic forms but to encourage reverie and inner journey.
And I hope that you will be part of this dreamlike journey to the heart of matter.