From A Cloud, Do You Have a Name?: On Jo Hsieh, Non-Space, Self-Portraits, and Clouds

By Xiaoxi Lin

Preface

As I repeatedly read through Jo Hsieh’s manuscripts, I often felt a surge of emotion beneath my calm surface. These documents are perhaps the closest expression of her thoughts and creative efforts. Many notes, marked with edits and erasures, reveal her thought process in exploring art. Even more so, they show her determination to articulate and prove the existence of “Non-Space”Note 1—her most significant artistic concept—through various explanations and categorizations. This discovery was a great reward. Another source of emotion stemmed from encountering her abstract paintings—or rather, like most people, confronting any abstract art and wondering: how should we look at it? The anxiety I once felt was gradually eased as I read her manuscripts. Therefore, this article and the exhibition A Cloud, Do You Have a Name? that I curated for Jo Hsieh both attempt to develop a different perspective and possibility for viewing Jo Hsieh and her concept of Non-Space, through the clues in her manuscripts.

About Jo Hsieh

“Enrich my time with life! No matter how hard it is—I must persevere. Nothing in this world comes without effort!” — Jo Hsieh

Jo Hsieh was born in 1967 in Chiayi, Taiwan. Influenced by her mother, she loved drawing from a young age and later attended Fu-Hsin Trade & Arts School, where she developed her skills in both fine art and design. After graduation, she stayed in Taipei and started her own design business. But more than design, she loved creating art. In 1991, she made the decision to study abroad in the UK. In a letter she wrote to her mother during her second year in the UK, she expressed:

“I want to become an artist! That is my ultimate goal! Teaching? I don’t object to it—for making a living, I can take a job, work part-time. But my full focus will always be on creating my own work! Perhaps you don’t fully agree with my decision, but I will work hard toward my goal! Honestly, I’m not willing to live my life like this, just like this, and let it pass by! Maybe I’ll be poor, but if someone wants to hold on to a goal, they are always lonely! I think I know clearly what I’m doing now and what I want!”

Every word in the letter shows her resolve to become an artist, and her unwavering commitment, even at great personal cost. She first enrolled in Chelsea College of Arts for her bachelor’s degree, then went on to Royal College of Art for her master’s in fine art, and later continued her doctoral studies at Falmouth College of Arts. Her core concept of “Non-Space” began to develop while she was at Chelsea, born out of both academic pursuit and her dream and artistic ambition. She continued creating works in this series for over twenty years. The series only came to a halt when her health no longer allowed her to work—after falling ill in 2015. It stands as the most essential and condensed expression of her brief yet brilliant artistic career. Sadly, Jo Hsieh passed away in 2017, before she could have more opportunities for direct dialogue and interaction with audiences. What she left behind were her extensive manuscripts and artworks, offering numerous clues and room for imagination about “Non-Space.”

Non-Space and the Cloud

“You can give a cloud a shape, but that is your projection—the cloud has no form. It is formless, or you can let it continuously transform.” — Jo Hsieh

What exactly is “Non-Space”? This concept, which captivated Jo Hsieh throughout her life and artistic career—perhaps even becoming a form of belief—was described by her as:

A pure, free inner spiritual world. “Non-Space” has no fixed form, limits, categories, or rules. It exists in contradiction—it is empty and void, yet also full and real... This conflict beyond form is a paradoxical state directly related to the essence of the soul. (1999, Jo Hsieh)

We might say that “Non-Space” was her spiritual realm. However, going through her manuscripts and works reveals that her idea of “Non-Space” goes far beyond pictorial expression. It also encompasses what appear to be surreal, diary-like short poems and writings, all classified under her “Non-Space” series. The title of this exhibition, A Cloud, Do You Have a Name?, is taken from a poem she wrote in English titled CloudNote 2, in which she describes the cloud—a presence full of mystery—in various ways. As I read it, I couldn’t help but wonder if the cloud she described is a metaphor for “Non-Space” itself. What surprised and delighted me even more was discovering that in her catalog of works—largely composed of non-figurative expressions using dots, lines, surfaces, and colors to depict “Non-Space”—there is a single piece featuring a figurative image of a cloud floating in the sky. A tangible cloud. This made me believe even more that her interpretation of the cloud represents and connects to her most important creative concept: “Non-Space.” What also fascinated me in the poem was her switching between first, second, and third person—as if at times she was the cloud, at other times speaking to it, and at others introducing it to us, the readers—

In the first person, she becomes the voice of the cloud:

“This is the most ancient question, I’ve been repeatedly asked many times, I don’t know where I come from, I also don’t know where I will be, I will be like the other companions, Slowly float, Slowly vanish.”

“Do not think to conquer I! You will not succeed.”

In the second person, as if in conversation with the cloud:

“Why don’t you have no weight, no direction, no future, no…”

“Do you have a form? Or do you keep changing? A cloud, do you have a name?”

In the third person, she shares her view of the cloud with us:

“The whole existence is like a cloud, Without any source, Without any cause of karma, Without any ultimate reason. It exists, it exists in a mystery.”

“You cannot foil a cloud because wherever it goes it’s therefore its destination.”

Reading Cloud and looking at her painting of the cloud, I couldn’t help but draw connections to my own experiences. It reminded me of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 animated film Castle in the Sky, where the floating kingdom of Laputa is hidden within clouds—containing both a primordial, untouched forest and highly advanced technologies. To prevent human greed from discovering and exploiting it, the island is shrouded in a massive cloud. I associate this because Jo Hsieh’s manuscripts often reflect her fondness for the classic novel The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince, 1943)Note 3. If you’re familiar with its beginning, you’ll recall that the young protagonist dreamed of becoming an artist and once drew a picture of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant. But the adults only saw a hat. To explain himself, he had to draw the inside view, which left him disillusioned with how adults only cared about appearances. He lamented how adults always wanted everything clearly explainedNote 4—as if they had lost the purest sense of imagination.

Jo Hsieh, unwilling to stop at outward appearances, found profound meaning in even a single cloud. She used the cloud to interpret her idea of “Non-Space.” Still, Cloud is only one form of Non-Space—it’s not the entire answer. Like the question in the poem, “Do you have a name?”, it seems to be an unanswerable question—or one whose answer is always changing. The poem reminds us: “Cloud, shall not be viewed as a difficult problem, once it’s viewed as one, it can never be solved.” Thus, the cloud lives on “with such a taste.” It is both mysterious and simple. It is not a problem, yet it is full of mystery. Just like Jo Hsieh’s own description of “Non-Space”: no fixed form, limits, categories, or rules. It exists in contradiction. It is empty and void, yet also full and real.

Compared to the inner spiritual world that we may never fully grasp—like a pure floating island shrouded in massive clouds—at least through Cloud, we are offered a shared language that lets us experience and imagine a glimpse of what Non-Space might be.

Self-Portrait and the Cloud

“In an unreal space, all that is unreal becomes real; in a real space, all that is real becomes unreal.” — Jo Hsieh

A self-portrait can be a form of observation and documentation of the self; it can also be a performance, playing the role of an imagined other. Conversely, it might be an introspective revelation of one’s inner state, simultaneously performing and symbolizing a psychological condition. In short, a self-portrait is far more complex than simply depicting oneself. Through her continuous self-depiction, Jo Hsieh was expressing the many facets of her inner world. If Non-Space was a carefully constructed representation of her spiritual realm, then her self-portraits were a more intuitive, expressive way of capturing her daily states. Remarkably, 1,619 self-portraits by her remain, created from 1993 to 1999—a significant body of work both in scale and timespan. During this period, she drew herself nearly every day. As curator Chen, Kuang-Yi, who organized Jo Hsieh’s retrospective The Blue Philosophy, once said: “The work she aimed to create was always the same piece: life.”Note 5

Looking across her self-portraits, the diversity of mediums and styles is astonishing. Materials include oil, watercolor, crayons, pencil, ink, markers, acrylic paint, resin, even clay sculpture, and arrangements of everyday objects that were later photographed. Her stylistic approaches also varied widely—from conventional realism, to exaggerated or quirky features embedded within realistic frames, to expressions full of childlike playfulness. Yet most often, whether in color choice or in recognizable facial expressions, her works tended toward darker tones and carried a mood of gloom, sorrow, anxiety, and pain. Some works moved entirely away from figurative representation, using simplified lines or objects like buttons, clocks, or bananas—so abstract that the human form disappears. Sometimes, she transformed herself into a cat, replacing the human image. Recurring characters include her cats Miller and Toto, long-time companions during her years in the UK, as well as motifs like the sun, moon, clouds, and cigarettes. These elements clearly held personal significance. Miller and Toto were family-like presences; smoking was part of her routine—perhaps a reflection of inner turmoil. As for the sun, moon, and clouds, based on the earlier discussion of her poem Cloud, it’s evident that clouds held symbolic weight for her. And it’s not hard to imagine that the sun and moon, equally unreachable in the sky, represented day and night, the passage of time—symbols with emotional resonance.

It’s nothing new for artists to express themselves through exaggeration or to abandon outward likeness in favor of other forms. Egon Schiele (1890–1918), for example, created self-portraits featuring gaunt or distorted bodies, exaggerating physical forms as if a greater desire surged beneath the skin. Are Schiele’s self-portraits realistic? Can the human body truly be so exaggerated? I don’t believe they’re realistic, but they are brutally honest in expressing the inner self. Similarly, Paul Klee (1879–1940) painted Struck from the List in 1933—a geometric self-portrait with a large “X” on the back of the head, expressing his frustration and resentment at being dismissed from his teaching post at the Düsseldorf Academy because he couldn’t prove his Aryan heritage. Though geometrically abstract, the emotional impact is unmistakable. Like Schiele and Klee, Jo Hsieh showed us that the outline of the self in a self-portrait can be disregarded. What matters is the emotion and thought beneath the surface. The visible “truth” is no longer the focus—what matters is how the experience of living is reflected in art, in the mirror we call art. German art historian Reinhard Steiner once said that in modern self-portraiture, “the experience of the self often creates a double self; the self becomes both subject and object.” He further explained, “All objects—anything that can be drawn or painted—are objects of the self, partial experiences of the self.”Note 6

This brings us back to what fascinated me about Cloud: the shifting perspectives between first, second, and third person—at times she is the cloud, at times she interacts with it, at times she tells us about it. In this fluidity, the cloud seems to become her doubled self—a self-experienced object. Jo Hsieh and the cloud are both subject and object. As described in her poem: “In Tibet, there is a type of peaceful mind: Lamas sit on the mountain in complete seclusion, in a peaceful mind, meditate on the floating clouds in the sky, continually meditate… meditate. Gradually merged by the clouds, then together they become one, as like a cloud.” Perhaps in her heart, she too—countless times—gazed skyward and imagined becoming a floating cloud. And not just the cloud. Each of those 1,619 self-portraits represents a different facet of Jo Hsieh. Beneath a cheerful exterior, there might be unspeakable sorrow. In moments of sadness, there might still be hope for life and meaning. That’s why she once said, “People are always afraid to be their true selves in real spaces—they only dare to be real in unreal spaces.” Perhaps the Jo Hsieh drawn on paper each day was more real than the one in life.

Non-Space and Jo Hsieh

“I firmly believe in the existence of such a space. ‘Non-Space’ exists in everyone’s heart.” — Jo Hsieh

Earlier, we encountered one form of “Non-Space” through the concept of the cloud, but Non-Space is far more than that. In her manuscripts, Jo Hsieh listed 219 questions solely to explore its existence. Questions like: “How do I develop my Non-Space?” “What are the characteristics of Non-Space?” “Why do I only use BLUE?” “How do I visually represent Non-Space?” “How do I express Non-Space non-visually?” “What does BLUE feel like spiritually?” “What does BLUE look like visually?” “What is BLUE? Where does it come from?” “How do I study BLUE?” “How do I study the relationship between BLUE and other colors?” “Can Zen be painted?” “Can the subconscious be painted?” “Can Western philosophy be painted?” “Are there other artists with similar theories?” “Are there other art movements with similar theories?” “Does Non-Space exist?” “What is the relationship between Non-Space and me?”... These questions show how meticulously she dissected the idea of Non-Space. She also once expressed admiration for artists like Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) and Paul Klee—artists who not only painted well but developed coherent theories around their work. Clearly, articulating a theory around abstract painting was something she aspired to. “So I began collecting data from the 19th century,” she wrote—driven by motivation and inquiry, she looked to predecessors and history to substantiate Non-Space. Therefore, reducing her concept to mere mysticism would be a missed opportunity—it deserves deeper investigation beyond its enigmatic surface.

Jo Hsieh once wrote, “Two books always accompany me with different feelings at different times”: one is The Little Prince, already mentioned earlier; the other is Through the Looking-Glass (1871).Note 7 Her love for these two books may be the perfect lens through which to understand Non-Space. In Through the Looking-Glass, Alice steps through a mirror into a world that inverts reality. Text must be read through a mirror, clock numbers are reversed, time flows backward, and the chessboard on the table becomes animated, leading to a fantastical journey. The concepts of “reflection” and “time” in the story were pivotal to Jo Hsieh’s conception of Non-Space—a space of fantasy and imagination where time can be reconstructed. It’s a world that breaks all conventions, where nothing is impossible. If we interpret Non-Space through The Little Prince, we arrive at the scene where the prince asks for a drawing of a sheep. The first sheep is rejected for being unhealthy, the second for being unconvincing, the third for being too old. Finally, the narrator draws a box and says, “This is just a box. The sheep you want is inside.”Note 8 Jo Hsieh responded, “It’s this magical box that moved me.” In her view, the box contained infinite possibilities. To manifest such a magical box, three elements were necessary: space—the box; time—the box’s continued existence; motion—the sheep within the box. She explained in her notes: “Space changes because of time, and motion becomes space... I can hardly say which one is more important. Time can represent space and motion; motion can represent space and time; space can represent time and motion.” In Non-Space, these elements are interdependent. If Through the Looking-Glass inspired the imaginative, boundless quality of Non-Space, The Little Prince helped her establish its foundational conditions. But while the prince’s box held a sheep, what, then, was in Jo Hsieh’s box?

The development of abstract painting can be seen as a challenge or departure from the traditional, the authoritative, the mainstream. Jo Hsieh’s turn to abstraction aligned with her strong-willed, anti-authoritarian personality,Note 9 and it allowed her to express herself freely—unconstrained by systems and rules. Painting was her sole form of freedom, and abstraction her purest expression. Still, one wonders: for an artist so immersed in the inner world, did language become a limitation? Art historian Simon Morley notes that abstract art is especially dependent on discourse,Note 10 and that audiences rely on the artist’s descriptions to engage with it. But what happens when there are no such cues? In the absence of visual referents, viewers interpret through the lens of their own cultural and social memory—past experiences and learned knowledge.Note 11 The less concrete the artwork, the more it demands introspection.Note 12 This is why curator Chen Kuang-Yi, in Jo Hsieh’s Blue Paintings, wrote that “the existence of Jo Hsieh’s Non-Space depends on the viewer’s spiritual depth and sensitivity.” She quoted Yves Klein, who in his 1985 exhibition Le Vide (The Void), referenced Gaston Bachelard: “At first, there is nothing. Then, a profound nothingness. Then, a blue depth.”Note 13 Whether her work feels like “nothing,” or reveals “a profound void,” or even “a blue depth,” depends on each viewer. Perhaps it’s this ambiguity that makes her work—and abstract painting—so captivating. Returning to the conflict between inner spirit and language: though language was her only bridge to the viewer, it was also a flawed one. Jo Hsieh once wrote:

Non-Space relates to the soul, spirit, and psyche. It is both fullness and emptiness. Only through insight can it be understood. It is joyful, formless, and without style. It is clear, yet misty. It cannot be forced; it comes naturally. It can fly; it has no concept of time. It is abstract, without rules or boundaries—it is infinite, beautiful! It only exists deep within the heart. Language can only convey the basics. Language is not enough, nor is it worthy. Language cannot interpret the human spiritual world. Language is a barrier to soul-to-soul connection. (Jo Hsieh, 2004)

In other words, while language served as a medium, it could never fully express her ineffable inner world. Despite this paradox, she understood that she needed enough knowledge to describe and theorize Non-Space. After all, the human psyche is immensely complex. Her attempts to systematically explain it involved integrating a broad range of disciplines: art theory, psychology, perception, music, dance, science, physiology, physics, Eastern and Western philosophies. From foundational elements—dot, line, plane, color—she developed countless series. She studied art history to align with or oppose ideas. Her process was not instantaneous; each insight accumulated over time. Her evolving understandings of Non-Space resulted in different series, such as those rooted in musicality, Zen, or spatial relationships. Regardless of form or theory, each is a facet of the greater Non-Space. This is why the exhibition Cloud, Do You Have a Name? features not only her Blue series but also works in pastel, crayon, ink, pencil, and printmaking—revealing that Jo Hsieh was not bound by medium. She expressed her ideas through every texture, color, and material. Yet, when it came to the act of creation, she let go of overthinking, surrendering to the moment of painting. On the subconscious and psyche, she once wrote:

Psychology tells us that “the subconscious world is free, innocent, and primal. Conscious thoughts are often repressed; only the subconscious is closest to the self.” I simply want the Jo Hsieh within Non-Space to fully flourish, without fear of chaos. That’s why it’s transparent, soft, and reflective!Note 14

Ultimately, Non-Space is a state that strikes at the essence of the soul—what she called “a paradoxical state directly connected to the nature of the spirit.” These clues helped me understand why someone trained in Western art history turned to Laozi and Zhuangzi for inspiration. Like the concept of “negative space” in Chinese painting—where water need not be drawn, only a lone boat—Eastern philosophy’s “emptiness” and “nothingness” transcend form, allowing truth to emerge through void. Through such spiritual “negative space,” Jo Hsieh’s Non-Space reached beyond form and returned to authenticity. While she developed intricate theories to articulate Non-Space, underneath the rational exterior lay a deeply emotional core. This tenderness appears in her handwritten thoughts on Edvard Munch’s The Dead Mother and Child (1899):

A girl stands with her hands covering her ears, as if hearing the call of “death.” Her mother lies behind her. She stands strong, yet I can feel her fear and helplessness... Why? Because this painting moved me! It carried me across time into a space of imagination, of sorrow! Every time I see it, I’m scared—what if one day I lose my mother too? (I love my mother very, very much!)

This passage, I believe, captures Jo Hsieh’s purest emotions—and reveals the power she hoped Non-Space would hold: to carry one’s vast spirit and emotion across time. And she placed all of that into her magical box. In that box, “space” refers to her inner world (the box); “time” includes past, present, and future (the box’s continued existence); “motion” is her imagination, emotions, and free-flowing subconscious (the sheep inside). I still remember visiting her childhood home in Chiayi, where her room remains untouched—filled with countless sheep. It all made sense. Non-Space, to Jo Hsieh, was utterly real. And as she once said, it also exists in all of us.

The Qualities of Non-Space

“The journey toward ‘Non-Space’ is endless. It is there, always has been, like the ocean. An ocean of feeling—you dive in and become one with it, like a drop of water merging with the sea. That doesn’t mean you or I understand the whole ocean. Right—just because a cloud is in the sky doesn’t mean it understands the whole sky.” — Jo Hsieh

We’ve spoken so much about “Non-Space,” and reviewed many of Jo Hsieh’s manuscripts. Throughout, I’ve tried not to get lost in every detail she constructed to prove its existence—not because they’re unimportant; quite the opposite. These details are essential, as they enabled her to build a comprehensive worldview of Non-Space. What I aim to do is use her own lens and interpretive method to distill qualities that help us understand Non-Space. Though we may not capture every detail, these three overarching qualities offer a clearer pathway: texture, mystery, and blue.

Starting with visible forms, the first quality worth discussing is texture. The concept of texture emerged early in her exploration of whether Non-Space was real. It was one of the first traits she used to express the spatial nature of painting. Drawing on Kandinsky’s ideas of “point, line, plane,” she questioned whether shapes and structure could constitute space. For example, she wrote, “I used candle dots to create planes—not by going through lines but forming planes directly. Perhaps the point itself is already a plane, a space.” She also theorized that repeatedly drawing a dot in the same location—though a single dot in two dimensions—might represent multiple points in depth when viewed as three-dimensional. She called this depth. Building on this, she deduced that “overlap creates space; space equals distance; distance equals nearness or farness, which equals the length of time.” For her, layering in an artwork introduced qualities of space and time. Later, incorporating Kandinsky’s ideas on the “sound” in painting, she concluded that each painted point or line has a place, size, strength, and direction in space. Thus, music itself possesses spatiality and can be perceived and expressed through abstract painting—so much so that she once said, “I touched Mozart.”

Her studies later included Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) and Spatialism. Fontana’s slashed canvases, though physically shifting from two to three dimensions, were for him portals into infinite space—equivalent to the multidimensional universe.Note 15 These artistic viewpoints, and how she engaged with them, drove her to express the reality of space through the material qualities of a flat surface. As early as 1992 at Chelsea College of Arts, she began creating works in response to her studies. One standout series is her tactile printmaking using intaglio techniques, aimed at creating touchable depth—embossed and debossed textures. The subtle variations of surface became her way of expressing space. She went on to develop pastel, crayon, and watercolor series, often choosing heavily textured paper. Her works emphasized thick application of pigment or used scraping to build visual and physical depth. Though these depths may only differ by a fraction, and may not be visible without seeing the original works, Jo Hsieh connected deeply with these fine nuances as expressions of her inner world. Across all her media, I believe the richly textural quality is an essential trait in her realization of Non-Space.

Next are the other two qualities: mystery and blue. Jo Hsieh is an artist who relentlessly seeks understanding. We see this in her rigorous manuscript studies and her engagement with theories from Kandinsky to Paul Klee and Surrealism. For instance, she found Klee’s theory more moving than Kandinsky’s—not to delve into their differences here, but she once wrote, “Klee offered powerful evidence” that convinced her. In her reflections on Surrealism, she remarked, “They pursued a union between ‘dream’ and ‘reality’ [⋯] not governed by reason, but driven by imagination and instinct. [⋯] I feel it’s too fantastical and unreal…” This shows she preferred “powerful evidence” and disliked expressions divorced from reason. Even though, as noted earlier, she embraced the subconscious in the act of creation to express and liberate herself, that liberation was built upon a thoroughly constructed worldview of Non-Space and thousands of practice sessions. Her studies into point, line, plane, and color made her technical control mature enough that every creation felt meticulously prepared. Because she seeks deep understanding and rational foundations, the quality that ultimately draws her in is—like the line in Cloud: “Cloud is a mystery, it’s coming, it’s going, and it’s existing, all is a mystery.”—what truly fascinates her is mystery, the kind that even her most diligent efforts cannot fully explain.

This mystery exists in nature—like water, like the sea, like clouds. All born of the same essence, yet taking forms both minute and grand. That’s why she draws inspiration from natural elements—especially water and its many manifestations in nature. As she once said:

“Water is an incredibly mysterious thing, an exceptional thing. It’s solid, liquid, and gas. It can become rain, it can become ice, it can become water. It’s in the sky, underground, it’s everywhere. Isn’t that mysterious? It is. Without it, we wouldn’t survive. So many things in nature couldn’t exist without water. That’s why I love expressing through water.”
Note 16

She also chose blue as the primary color of Non-Space because blue is arguably nature’s rarest and most mysterious hue. Though we associate the sky and ocean with blue, scientifically speaking, it’s a result of Earth’s rotation and the angle of sunlight. In other words, blue arises from the universe’s motion (space + movement) and the transmission of light (time + movement). It appears in our lives only because of cosmic dynamics. Thus, blue represents the three key elements of Non-Space—time, space, and motion. Blue becomes their embodiment and symbol. Its appearance signifies life’s endless renewal, the rhythm of existence, and a stabilizing force—like water forming the vast sea. For Jo Hsieh, mystery and blue deepened in resonance over her two decades of devotion to Non-Space.

Layer by layer, we see Jo Hsieh’s intricate construction of an immense spiritual world. She uses the mystery of water and the symbolism of blue to infuse brushstrokes with emotion and breathe life into color. Non-Space becomes real, yet like a cloud—“Cloud’s form is never the same in every moment every minute, it is always changing, it is moving, it is like the water, always moving.” And still, it echoes her enduring question to the cloud: “Do you have a name?” That answer remains a question—or perhaps the answer lies within you and me.

Notes

Note 1
Regarding the English translation of “非空間” (Fei-Kong-Jian), both “Non-Space” and “None Space” appear in Jo Hsieh’s manuscripts. Referring to the Cambridge Dictionary, “Non-” is a prefix meaning “without, not, un-,” while “None” is a pronoun meaning “not one, nothing.” In this article, “Non-Space” is adopted as the English translation.

Note 2
The full bilingual version of Cloud is included in the appendix of this article.

Note 3
The Little Prince was published in 1943 by French military pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944), based on his personal experience of a plane crash in the Sahara Desert.

Note 4
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, translated by Yi Lin, The Little Prince, Taichung: Sanjiu Publishing, 1996, p.6.

Note 5
Chen Kuang-Yi, “Jo Hsieh's Self-Portrait Series,” In The Philosophy of Blue – Jo Hsieh Retrospective Solo Exhibition, New Taipei City: Jo Hsieh Arts Foundation, 2024, p.56.

Note 6
Reinhard Steiner, Egon Schiele 1890–1918: The Midnight Soul of the Artist, Taschen America Llc, 2000.

Note 7
Through the Looking-Glass is a novel by British author Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), published in 1871. It is the sequel to the better-known Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

Note 8
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, translated by Yi Lin, The Little Prince, Taichung: Sanjiu Publishing, 1996, p.15.

Note 9
See also a previous article by the author in 2019: “The Unfinished Journey—The Life and Art of Jo Hsieh”

Note 10
Simon Morley, translated by Tian Lixin, The Simple Truth, Artco Publishing Co., Ltd., 2022, p.29.

Note 11
Ibid., p.42.

Note 12
Ibid., p.43.

Note 13
Chen Kuang-Yi, “Jo Hsieh’s Blue Paintings,” In The Philosophy of Blue – Jo Hsieh Retrospective Solo Exhibition, New Taipei City: Jo Hsieh Arts Foundation, 2024, p.12.

Note 14
Non-Space: The Circle Series, Taipei: CHINI Gallery, 2012, p.91.

Note 15
See Note 10, p.113.

Note 16
Jo Hsieh interview video: https://youtu.be/7X_069wnqn4?si=SZY1aH4qxEXGs28p