About the Exhibition
Ethereal Bloom – The Luminous Paradise of Chang Li-Yeh presents a radiant world where blossoms shimmer in divine light and fantastical creatures roam under deep blue skies. Inspired by his painting Blossoming Tree, this exhibition captures the sacred beauty and fleeting sorrow of life at its most vibrant.
Featuring works from the past decade, including the series Butterfly Man, Fairy Tale Paradise, Animism, and Aura, the show traces Chang’s journey from whimsical dreamscapes to spiritual utopias. Alongside these are his early newspaper
per illustrations and expressive series like Self-Portrait and Social Outcast, revealing a transformation from raw, intuitive forms to intricate, symbolic compositions.
Curated by Huang Chih-Wei, the exhibition explores the idea of “ephemeral dreams”—moments that sparkle and vanish like morning dew. In worlds filled with playful monsters, sacred animals, and floating blossoms, time stretches and folds. Ethereal Bloom invites visitors to wander through Chang’s luminous landscapes and glimpse the artist’s innermost visions of joy, loss, and renewal.
 
Section Introduction
Section 1: Primitive and Marginal
Chang’s early series, Self-Portrait and Social Outcast, reveal his untrained yet deeply expressive style—bold, unpolished, and reminiscent of childhood sketches. He depicted outsiders and the vulnerable with empathy, translating their pain into raw, honest strokes. Painting was his way of processing emotions, a quiet act of healing, like an injured animal retreating to lick its wounds.
Since his young age, Chang was deeply drawn to the naïve, dreamy, and creative style. In addition, the simple colors and boundless imagination of native art have also been deeply imprinted on his creative soul, resulting in his astringent, ancient, bizarre, deviant, twisted, metamorphic and magical style of painting images.
 
Section 2: A Journey of Transformation
In Butterfly Man, under the intricate layers, every flower represents a universe, and each grain of dust signifies a moment in time, celebrating splendor. The faces bear marks that reflect the ruins of past grandeur, now transformed into simple yet humble impressions of happiness and completeness embodied by the painter, his wife, and their joyful child. The Butterfly Man’s countenance exudes a spiritual essence. The trees and mountains surrounding him, now alive, seem to communicate, forming a vivid and enchanting landscape of life in the Butterfly Man’s world. The butterfly-shaped contour, brimming with imagery, creates a harmonious realm both within and without the figure.
In Wild Child, a golden light emanates from the tree’s roots at the center of the forehead, cascading like a spring of light along the roots and highlighting the spiritual essence of the wildling. Each surrounding plant and tree possesses a spiritual expression and vibrant presence, gradually revealing the artist’s belief in the spirit within all things.
 
Section 3: Aura Paradise
Chang’s paintings weave together nature, mythology, and personal reflection. His dreamscapes feel timeless, blending ancient folklore with contemporary imagination.
Animism posits that all things in this world, whether living or inanimate, possess spirit, sentience, and life. Everything exists and changes due to the intricate web of causes and conditions. Chang breathes life into this cosmic view with his vibrant imagination, generating an array of strange, mythical creatures and spirits while crafting a utopian, pure world beyond mundane reality.
 
Section 4: Illustrate the Unconstrained Imagination
In the 1990s, after completing military service, Chang became an illustrator for major newspapers. With complete creative freedom, he let his imagination roam, transforming words into whimsical, detailed drawings. He realized that the joy of illustration is to be playing like a child. He enjoys using a dip pen to draw overlapping lines one by one, which creates the fine effect of a copperplate, allowing him to quickly enter a state of concentration. Due to the overloaded work, he was diagnosed with a liver disease, which turned out to be the counterpoint of his career. 
After recovering in 1997, Chang took a trip to Paris. He exposed himself to Art Brut, sparking a profound shift in his artistic vision. This discovery led him away from illustration and into full-time painting. Though he left behind the security of illustration work, this experience shaped the foundations of his art, instilling in him a love for storytelling through imagery.
 
Section 5: Aura
In this series of paintings, the luminous realms lie in a sacred, pure land that invites viewers to step inside and wander through its serene landscapes, while also discovering the inner sanctuary that the artist longs for.
 
Section 6: One Day: Seeking the Paradise Within
One Day explores the passage of time, where a single moment holds an entire world. Days repeat, yet each is unique. In this painted paradise, Chang freezes fleeting moments—the way light shifts, the way colors glow—capturing the essence of time’s quiet magic
 
About the Artist
Chang Li-Yeh was born in Chiayi. He graduated from the Department of Sociology at Soochow University in Taiwan. In his youth, he developed a love for reading and writing literature and poetry. Like many budding artists, he enjoyed doodling and habitually filled every blank space in his textbooks, which ultimately became an indelible “bad habit.” This tendency shaped his subconscious, leading to the brimming, compact imagery found in his paintings today. Perhaps it is precisely this “bad habit” that contributes to the unique characteristics of his work.
Chang’s early works centered on social issues, portraying the struggles of marginalized communities. His Betel Nut Beauty series explored the objectification of young women in Taiwan’s industrial cities, while Landslide reflected on climate change and ecological destruction. These works captured the raw, often surreal contradictions of human nature and politics. Mini Forum

• Date: 10 May 2025, 15:30-17:00
• Venue: Gallery 401-405
• Host: Huang Chih-Wei, Curator
• Speaker: Chang Li-Yeh, Artist | Huang Wen-Yyung, Professor of the Department of Fine Arts from Tainan University of Technology | Huang Ming-Chuan, Film Director

Book signing event and Mini Forum

• Date: 28 June 2025, 14:30-16:30
• Venue: Gallery 401-405
• Host: Huang Chih-Wei, Curator
• Speaker: Chang Li-Yeh, Artist | Hung Yi, Artist | Chu En-Ling, Writer