Lightwoven Nature celebrates Taiwan’s dyeing traditions, tracing their roots in botanical pigments and artisanal mastery. Drawing from the island’s lush ecology, the exhibition distills a hundred classic colors—each born of nature, each distinctly Taiwanese—to explore the dynamic realm where craft meets the living world.

Taiwan is home to diverse plant life and ecological environments. Drawing from photographic studies of endemic flora, evolving color charts, and time-honored techniques, Lightwoven Nature unveils an aesthetic shaped by the interplay of nature and hand. Contemporary works inspired by Taiwan’s mountains, rivers, and winds reimagine landscapes in threads of color. Here, artisans learn from nature itself, weaving a palette of place and belief—an ode to ecology, and a dialogue with sustainability."

Hundred Classic Colors of Taiwan

Taiwan is rich in natural dye resources. Around 40 years ago, Chen Ching-lin and Ma Yu-hsiu embarked on a journey to rediscover the island’s native hues. Through fieldwork, gathering, and experimentation, they began reviving Taiwan’s traditional color palette. Subsequently bolstered by government funding, their efforts evolved into the “In Search of Taiwan’s Colors” project a decade later. Years of experimentation and distillation paid off as a comprehensive system of natural dyes gradually took shape.
To carry forward these natural colors, they also revived traditional dyeing techniques—such as tie-dyeing, batik, fold-and-clam dyeing, stencil dyeing, and hand-painted dyeing—while developing new creative applications. Their long-term research, experiments, and craft innovation led to a good number of publications, educational outreach to both campuses and communities, and an outburst of natural dye-based cultural products.

To further share the beauty of natural dyeing, the two artists have extended across disciplines—integrating color theory, dye science, and design—to launch the Hundred Classic Colors of Taiwan initiative. The aim is to build a natural dye archive suitable for daily applications. Looking ahead, the initiative seeks to integrate aesthetic education with the development and application of natural dye resources while fostering a deeper appreciation for everyday beauty and continuing to explore artistic expression through color.

Mother River of Taiwan, a monumental indigo tie-dye work on cotton, is an original creation by Chen Ching-lin. Drawing inspiration from the Zhuoshui River that runs through his hometown, Chen uses natural indigo produced in Taiwan and multiple immersion techniques to craft a unique, deeply expressive textile painting.

While many cultures have traditional dyeing practices, these are often reserved for garments or home décor but rarely for expressive art. Originally artists by training, Chen and his wife Ma Yu-hsiu developed specialist expertise in weaving and natural dyeing through years of research and practice. Through years of artistic practice, they gradually developed a distinctive style that has won widespread admiration. With a rigorous scholarly spirit, Chen has long devoted himself to fieldwork, research, and creative experimentation, steadily building a formidable reservoir of skill and insight. In place of brush and paint, he uses needle and dye to craft works of striking subtlety and depth. This particular piece—stitched and bound, dyed and redyed hundreds of times—is a tender act of remembrance, each immersion a tribute to the “Mother River” of his homeland. Through a lifetime of study and devotion, the artist has dyed into cloth his profound love and reverence for the land of Taiwan.

Migration  traces the cyclical journey of water through Taiwan’s landscape—from clouds and rain to rivers, tidal zones, and back to sea—thereby revealing the shifting relationship between people of the island and their environment. Composed of indigo-dyed cloth wheels, the circular forms evoke the fluidity of water, the cycles of nature, the rhythms of labor, and the layered passage of time.

Natural dyeing is the art of infusing fabric and fiber with pigments drawn from the earth—minerals, plants, and animals. Of these, plants yield the richest spectrum. Valued for their organic origins, non-toxic nature, biodegradability, rich palette, and softness that lends a lasting visual charm, natural dyes make possible a green artistic craft full of life.

Lightwoven Nature retraces the origins of Taiwan’s hundred native colors. Through years of fieldwork, the artists have journeyed across the island, gathering materials directly from nature. From these collected plants, they extract pigments and conduct repeated experiments to uncover the true, original hues unique to Taiwan’s flora. Through layered and repeated dyeing, they create a wide array of colored fabrics, which are then carefully categorized and arranged into a dye spectrum—a chromatic archive that forms a living treasury of Taiwan’s colors.
Beyond experimentation, the project also involves field studies of traditional techniques, organizing them into a structured body of knowledge. Through teaching and artistic practice, the work has inspired many to engage with natural dyeing. Drawing from the everyday, these practitioners turn dyeing experiments into part of daily life. Through layer upon layer of color, new shades emerge, colliding into brilliance, revealing depth, and weaving color into the fabric of life itself.