Maartje Blans at Taipei Dangdai 2025 with Da Xiang Art Space - Taiwan

Da Xiang Art Space (大象藝術空間館) will present thirteen new works by Dutch artist Maartje Blans at Taipei Dangdai Art Fair 2025, one of Asia’s leading international art fairs.

From May 9–11, 2025 (with a VIP Preview on May 8), the work of Maartje Blans will be presented at Taipei Dangdai at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei, Taiwan. The presentation is organized by Da Xiang Art Space.

Participating artists: Antoni TÀPIES, Richard  SERRA, David  REIMONDO, Maartje BLANS, Inoue Yuichi (井上有一), QIN Chong (秦冲), Queena WANG, WHYIXD / He Li Interactive (何理互動), HUANG Zan-Lun (黃贊倫).

Video: Taipei Dangdai – inviting the world to Taipei  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsw7NblWuJo

FULL OF EMPTINESS – The Meaning of the Void

At Taipei Dangdai 2025, Da Xiang Art Space presents FULL OF EMPTINESS – The Meaning of the Void, featuring three series by Maartje Blans:

• Dialogue I–IX (2022–2025)

• Landscape I–IV (2025)

• Ink and Brush (1994)

  
  

Together, these works explore the central theme of Blans’s practice: emptiness not as absence, but as a space full of meaning, movement, and potential.

Dialogue I–IX

Mixed media on paper, each 30 × 40 × 3.8 cm, framed in handmade maple frames.

Dialogue I–IX consists of nine works in which Maartje Blans explores the relationship between emptiness, line, and form. The series engages with the philosophy of calligraphy, where a single, fluid stroke captures both movement and stillness.

Influenced by her years of living and working in Beijing and Taiwan, Blans reinterprets traditional ink techniques by developing a unique paint that remains on the surface rather than being absorbed. When observed closely, each line reveals a subtle texture and relief, casting delicate shadows and reflections. As a result, the work continuously changes depending on light, height, and the viewer’s perspective.

This series emerged from a long-standing dialogue with the East. During her extensive time in Asia, Blans deepened her fascination with the meaning of emptiness—an element that plays a crucial role in her work. An emptiness that, paradoxically, holds profound meaning. Her work arises through space, through the void surrounding the form. That is where meaning is found.

Together, the individual works form a unity: a language of lines, a meaningful movement. For Blans, the line symbolizes not only language or meaning, but also human movement—stretching, curling, extending. Almost like a dance, like the rhythm of breath in yoga. From inhalation to exhalation. Or even the rhythm of life itself.

Blans invites the viewer not only to observe the lines and forms, but also to become aware of the emptiness surrounding them. To emphasize this, she introduces an additional border, creating yet another layer of space. At times, a line subtly extends beyond the border—a playful, almost ‘cheeky’ gesture that continues to explore the idea of space.

Beyond visible movement, the works seek to evoke stillness. Much like poetry, where meaning exists not only in words but also in the silence between them, Dialogue I–IX invites viewers to look beyond what is immediately visible and to discover multiple layers: within the work, within the space, and within themselves.

Landscape I–IV

Mixed media on paper and canvas, each 40 × 40 × 4.2 cm.

With Landscape I–IV, Maartje Blans redefines the concept of the horizon—not as a fixed boundary, but as a liminal space where the known dissolves into the infinite. These works explore the poetic tension between presence and absence, stillness and movement, temporality and eternity.

The series plays with lines that suggest horizons, waves, and clouds—transitions that are sometimes clearly defined and sometimes gently fade away. At moments, the lines appear to extend beyond the work itself. Does the horizon continue?

Nature has long been a fundamental source of inspiration for Blans. She is deeply moved by both its fragility and resilience: the rhythm of waves, drifting clouds, tree branches, flowing water, weathered driftwood. She is especially drawn to moments of transition in the landscape—where sea becomes sky, where form dissolves into space. In that transition, in that void, meaning emerges.

In these elusive moments, Blans experiences a sense of both temporality and eternity, of silence and movement. There is something inherently spiritual in this space. Her work invites viewers to attune themselves to the rhythm of breath and silence, and to find meaning not only in the marks she makes, but in the spaces she leaves untouched.

During her time in Taiwan, Blans discovered refined, delicate paper whose transparency, subtle fibers, and thread-like structures became an important material influence. Encounters with Eastern artists, philosophies, and artistic traditions, combined with the discovery of new materials, directly contributed to the development of this series.

Event Information

Art Fair: Taipei Dangdai Art Fair 2025

Dates: May 9 – 11, 2025 VIP Preview: May 8, 2025

Location: Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Presented by: Da Xiang Art Space (大象藝術空間館)

More information: https://daxiang.com.tw/exhib/detail/283