From Minimal to Infinite:

Artist Lee Zai-qian

Joanna Wang　/　photos Kent Chuang　/　tr. by Brandon Yen

August 2026

中文

Lee Zai-qian often begins his day’s creative work by driving to Taiwan’s North Coast to watch the sunrise, sketch, and take photographs.

At not yet 5 a.m. it is still dark, but 98-year-old Lee
Zai-qian is already up and about. He drives to the coast of Jinshan District, New Taipei City, to watch the sunrise. “This is when the vital energy of heaven and earth is at its fullest.” He sketches and takes photographs. When the sunlight grows stronger, he heads off for breakfast, reads the newspaper, and then returns home, feeling inspired.

The garden of Lee’s home is full of life: Everything here was planted by him. Inside his studio, sculptural models, ink-wash paintings, calligraphic works, and oil paintings fill every corner. This is a living site of art that never ceases to grow. Lee calls himself an “old ant,” saying that he “works as hard as an ant.” A jest this may be, but it’s a fitting tribute to nearly a century of devotion to creativity.

Scattered in Lee Zai-qian’s garden, these rusted geometric shapes were parts of a work belonging to the same series as Limitless Continuity. It has been renamed Destruction of Creation.

Minimal to infinite

Lee was born in China’s Fujian Province in 1928. He traveled to Taiwan in 1948 to study. Focusing first on Chinese calligraphy and painting, he went on to specialize in sculpture. In the 1970s he came into contact with Western minimalism and discovered that its core concepts were akin to the teachings of Laozi and Zhuangzi and the ancient Chinese Book of Changes (Yijing). The encounter set him on a creative path integrating East Asian philosophy with Western geometric abstraction. Minimal to Infinite, created for the opening of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1983, is one of Lee’s representative projects. Through the repetition and assembling of geometric shapes, the work transforms mathematical structures into an aesthetic language. “The simplest geometric forms. No decoration. No story. One plus one plus one, and so on. It continues endlessly, beyond calculation—that’s infinity.”

Created for the opening of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1983, Lee Zai-qian’s Minimal to Infinite was displayed outside the museum. In 1985 the museum painted it a different color without Lee’s consent, prompting protests from the arts community. It was restored to its original appearance the following year, and now stands in the plaza outside the Cathay Cosmos Building on Taipei’s Minsheng East Road. (courtesy of Lee Zai-qian)

His public artworks can be seen across Taiwan, from Taoyuan International Airport and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts to school campuses and corporate plazas. Each of these projects took years to complete, supervised by himself. One of the works in the Minimal to Infinite group, being rusted, has been dismantled. Now resting on the lawn in his garden, it has acquired a new name: Destruction of Creation. “Birth entails death. Artworks are like life itself. They’re subject to time,” Lee says.

In 1992 Lee Zai-qian supervised the installation of Limitless Continuity on the campus of Yuan Ze University in Taoyuan. (courtesy of Lee Zai-qian)

In 2023 Lee Zai-qian donated his sculpture Confrontation and Harmony to the newly established New Taipei City Art Museum. (courtesy of Lee Zai-qian)

Lee Zai-qian’s stainless steel sculpture Yuan (1994) is installed on the lawn in front of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. (courtesy of Lee Zai-qian)

Beyond geometric shapes

Lee has spent many years studying art history and traveling the world to gain firsthand knowledge of the artistic heritage of different countries. He has published books exploring such topics as Greek sculpture and Chinese Buddhist sculpture. His eyes light up when he recalls the awe he felt standing in front of the giant Vairocana Buddha at the Longmen Grottoes in China’s Henan Province.

However, for him art isn’t simply a form of exploration. It’s also a way of responding to the environment and the times. In recent years, he has put together a book reproducing thousands of drawings and paintings completed over a span of 30 years, accompanied by handwritten poetry and prose. This is his response to an environmental disaster in 1977, when a Kuwaiti oil tanker hit a reef near Keelung, spilling a vast amount of crude oil that severely contaminated Taiwan’s North Coast. Lee’s words are full of concern and indignation.

In 2025, after hearing that the collapse of a landslide dam had unleashed a torrent of mud that engulfed people’s homes in Hualien’s Guangfu Township, he wrote the Chinese character hei (붚, “black”) over and over on a sheet of paper, turning his compassion into marks of ink.

At 98, Lee Zai-qian continues to devote himself to artistic creation.

This painting, which Lee Zai-qian completed this year, shows Guishan Island off Yilan’s coast, glowing in the soft light of dawn.

Displayed in a corner of the living room in Lee Zai-qian’s house is a cast bronze sculpture depicting a mare turning back to gaze affectionately at her foal.

An indefatigable artist

Chinese calligraphy is an integral part of Lee’s cultural upbringing, and he has developed his literary voice by immersing himself in Chinese and Western classics, as well as reading newspapers every day. He writes his own poems, rather than copying the works of earlier poets. When his children and grandchildren asked AI to comment on his writing, the verdict was that his poetry had a style all its own, which brought a smile to his face.

Lee’s creative career has spanned nearly eight decades, during which time he has never settled into a single style. “An artist mustn’t build a cage and lock himself inside it.” His creativity evolves with both his life and the changing times.

Lee Zai-qian in his studio. Part of his ink-wash painting Yao (2024) is seen here on the wall. On the table is a new piece created in response to landslides in Hualien, reflecting his compassion and concern for society.

Born into a family steeped in literature and the arts, Lee Zai-qian started practicing Chinese calligraphy at a tender age. Calligraphy has played a vital role in shaping his artistic sensibility. This photo shows his One Hundred Years of Solitude (74 × 240 cm, 2024).

Having received the National Award for Arts this year, Lee donated the entire cash prize to the Jinshan Branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He tells us that at his age, he no longer needs awards to affirm the worth of his work. Art, after all, is never about climbing to the top. It’s about sincerity, being faithful to one’s unclouded vision. This “old ant” plods on tirelessly, in pursuit of art’s infinitely expanding horizons.

Dated 2024, this painting depicts the Tiaoshi Coast polluted by an oil spill. To paint this piece, which measures 336 centimeters wide and 143 tall, Lee Zai-qian had to raise the living-room sofa and set up a large painting board there. (courtesy of Lee Zai-qian)