Pascal VAN DER GRAAF

From Nature to Spirit:

Pascal van der Graaf and the Renewal of Contemporary Abstraction

This article is composed by Arwen Yang (Ph.D., Peking University) and chatgpt

Summary

Pascal van der Graaf (b. 1978, the Netherlands) has developed a distinctive artistic language that bridges Western abstraction and Eastern philosophy. His early figurative works rooted in nature gradually gave way to abstraction, where the canvas itself became the subject. Through irregular formats and folded surfaces, he transformed the canvas into a solidified form of energy. In series such as Bernini and Incense Pouch, Baroque dynamism and Taiwanese cultural references expanded his practice beyond formalism. His recent Blossom series employs sacred geometry and origami structures to visualize spiritual power.

Building on the spiritual abstraction of Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich, and resonating with Minimalism and Concrete Art, Van der Graaf introduces folds as traces of breath, energy, and bodily movement. His work transcends Greenberg’s “formal autonomy” and enters what Krauss termed the “expanded field,” operating between painting and sculpture, and between cultures.

Living in Taiwan, Van der Graaf has absorbed Daoist ideas of following the natural flow along with practices of tai chi and qigong. Each fold becomes both an act of cultivation and a visualization of energy in motion, turning painting into an interplay of body, spirit, and form. His works thus serve simultaneously as traces of the artist’s inner practice and as meditative objects for viewers, while critically questioning whether art can truly transmit spiritual power.

Occupying what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space,” Van der Graaf’s art is neither solely Dutch nor purely Taiwanese but a hybrid language of “cross-cultural spiritual abstraction.” Extending geometric abstraction and Minimalism, infusing them with energy and spiritual resonance, his practice secures a unique position in contemporary art—an abstraction that is not only formal innovation but also cultural synthesis and philosophical inquiry.

Abstract

The artistic trajectory of Pascal van der Graaf (Yang Wen-Chih) is marked by nearly two decades of continuous exploration and questioning, a restless search that moved from figuration to abstraction in multiple phases. Between 2002 and 2020, he constantly shifted themes and techniques, never settling into one stable language, and repeatedly asked himself: Am I this type of painter? His answer was always no. This long process reflects not only experimentation but also a deep engagement with the traditions of both Western and Eastern art. Yet the true turning point was not his winning of the 2007 Royal Award for Modern Painting in the Netherlands, but his relocation to Taiwan in 2017. There, after years of exploration and uncertainty, he began in 2022 to fold canvases with origami-inspired techniques, opening a new era of abstraction. By creating shadows with shadows and painting with light, Van der Graaf established an original, cross-cultural language of spiritual abstraction, transforming doubt and persistence into renewal.

Chapter 1: The Figurative Period and the Gaze on Nature

Viewed from an art-historical perspective, Pascal van der Graaf (Yang Wen-Chih) did not begin with abstraction; his early work is rooted in figurative depictions of nature. Works from this period continue the European tradition of gazing at nature while gradually revealing the core motifs of his later abstract experiments—energy, flow, and becoming. From the floral series to black-and-white paintings, then fluid paintings and seascapes/landscapes, we can trace how he moved step by step from natural representation toward a personal abstract language, negotiating between depiction and formal purification.

1. 2002-2006: Floral Series: A Gaze on Natural Vitality

In his early work, flowers were Pascal’s most frequent subject. As a motif, flowers have a long lineage in Western art history—from Dutch Golden Age still lifes to Impressionist renderings of blooms in light—serving as a vehicle for understanding nature and expressing vitality. Pascal’s flowers are not simple reproductions of nature but approach an affective gaze: vivid colors and lively brushwork reveal his acute sensitivity to natural energy.

Here, flowers are both subject matter and a laboratory for form. Unlike the quiet restraint of traditional still life, Pascal’s floral paintings often carry a sense of motion, as if the blooms are unfolding on the canvas. This “growth” quality is later amplified in his exploration of paint’s flow and ultimately transformed into an abstract pursuit of energy.

2. 2006-2008: Black-and-White Paintings and Birdhouse: The First Signs of Formal Purification

In 2007, Pascal’s black-and-white painting Birdhouse won the Royal Award for Modern Painting in the Netherlands—a highly prestigious prize for young artists that encourages innovation and experiment. For Pascal, it was not only a milestone but also a sign of a directional shift.

Compared with the saturated palette of the floral series, Birdhouse is entirely in black and white. This extreme reduction heightens the importance of structure and form. High contrast compels viewers to confront order and tension directly, rather than be seduced by color. The turn signals a letting-go of external appearances of nature in favor of probing painting’s essential purity.

Art-historically, such purification echoes early-20th-century abstraction. In The New Plastic in Painting, Mondrian urged art to shed representation and pursue “pure plastic elements.” Though Pascal’s black-and-white works still retain figurative traces, their focus on structure shows a latent dialogue with the abstract tradition.

3. 2009-2012: Fluid Paintings: Paint as Self-Generating Form

Between the floral and black-and-white phases, Pascal developed a series of fluid paintings. These take the natural flow of paint as method: poured, dragged, and allowed to stream, pigments form shapes between chance and necessity. Flowers and figures are no longer bounded by strict contours but generated by the motion of the medium itself.

The significance of this phase lies in its foreshadowing of Pascal’s concern with autogenesis. The work is not mere depiction but the trace of a generative process. While recalling Jackson Pollock’s action painting, Pascal is more concerned with the natural behavior of paint than with bodily heroics: rather than conquering the canvas with gesture, he lets gravity and material properties find form. This “following the thing’s tendency” aligns with Daoist thought and is realized more fully in his later folded canvases.

4. 2012-2015: Landscape Period: Decay, Death, and Metaphors of Impermanence

Pascal turned to landscapes, particularly scenes of decayed mill houses, heavy with metaphors of death and impermanence. This period reflects his engagement with themes of loss and fragility, expanding the scope of his practice beyond formal experiment to existential inquiry.

5. 2015-2020: Seascapes: Holiday Lightness and the Desire to Depart

Pascal’s landscapes and seascapes extend the Dutch tradition of attending to light, space, and atmosphere, yet they diverge from narrative landscape by emphasizing energy fields rather than scenery. The swell of waves, the force of wind, and the decay of mill houses became metaphors of impermanence and death, rendered through rhythmic brushwork and layered pigment. Gradually, the focus shifted from external representation to internal sensation: nature was no longer merely scenery but a field of vital forces.

In his later figurative period, seascapes introduced boats and atmospheres of leisure, seemingly lighthearted yet carrying an undercurrent of longing—a subconscious desire to depart, to seek elsewhere. His brief stay in Macau in 2016 and permanent relocation to Taiwan in 2017 deepened this sensibility. In these later works, fluid techniques merged with marine imagery and Eastern floral motifs, foreshadowing the cross-cultural synthesis that would later define his abstract practice.

Summary

Pascal’s figurative period was not ancillary but a crucial point of departure, charting his move from natural representation toward formal purification. If the floral series manifested a gaze on vitality, the black-and-white works confronted destruction, fluid paintings revealed curiosity about genesis, and landscapes and seascapes opened onto experiences of decay and energy fields. These five phases reflect an artist continually dissatisfied, probing possibilities, and searching for a different path. His early practice remained deeply tied to tradition—whether Western techniques and theories or Eastern motifs like ukiyo-e and floral imagery—so much so that he described them as “mostly inspired by the past.” Yet within this repetition lay the seeds of renewal. The Royal Award of 2007 marked recognition rather than resolution, gathering earlier strands without ending his questioning. Ultimately, the figurative period must be seen as a foundation that prepared him for later breakthroughs in abstraction.

Chapter 2: The Question of Turning Points

The history of modern painters often emphasizes a single dramatic turning point, yet for Pascal van der Graaf the process was more complex. Recognition came early, but transformation arrived later. His trajectory can be clarified through five dimensions:

1. The Royal Award as Recognition, Not Resolution (2007).

Winning the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting with For the Bird gave Pascal national visibility and institutional validation. Yet this honor did not settle his artistic doubts. While critics read the work as a step toward purification, for Pascal it was an external milestone rather than an internal transformation.

2. A Decade of Experimentation (2007–2017).

Following the award, Pascal explored a wide range of themes: fluid abstractions, landscapes with metaphors of decay, and seascapes infused with lightness and unease. Each phase ended in dissatisfaction. He continued to ask: Am I this type of painter? The recurring answer—“no”—kept him moving restlessly between approaches.

3. Relocation to Taiwan (2017).

The true turning point came not from institutional recognition but from life changes. Relocating to Taiwan immersed Pascal in a new cultural context. Encounters with Daoist philosophy, the daily presence of folk traditions, and practices of tai chi and qigong introduced him to new ideas of flow, energy, and spirit. This environment destabilized his attachment to Western traditions and opened possibilities for renewal.

4. The Long Questioning of Identity.

Between 2002 and 2020, Pascal’s journey was one of persistent self-questioning. He often described his works of this period as “mostly inspired by the past,” echoing earlier masters and established idioms. His dissatisfaction lay precisely here: he did not want to simply reproduce traditions but sought to approach painting in a fundamentally different way.

5. Breakthrough in Folding (2022).

After years of experimentation and cultural transition, Pascal found a new language in folding the canvas. Here, shadows create further shadows, and light itself becomes the painterly medium. This was not merely a formal device but the resolution of two decades of doubt. Folding marked the moment when his long questioning crystallized into an affirmative practice—one that allowed him to step beyond tradition into the realm of cross-cultural spiritual abstraction.

Summary

In sum, the Royal Award of 2007 was a milestone, but the true transformation occurred much later, through relocation, cultural encounter, and persistent questioning. Only in 2022 did Pascal discover a form that answered his long-standing doubts, inaugurating his mature phase of folded abstraction.

Chapter 3: The Unfolding of Abstraction — The Genesis of Form

If Birdhouse is Pascal’s threshold, the following decade fully enters abstraction. Dissatisfied with planar depiction, he explores the canvas as material. From shaped canvases to horizontal/vertical folds, then the Bernini Series with sculptural dynamism, and onward to the Incense Pouch Series and Blossom Series, he builds a comprehensive abstract language.

1. Shaped Canvases: Breaking the Rectangle

Pascal first challenges painting’s basic support—the rectangle. While Greenberg once saw the rectangle as securing painting’s flatness, artists like Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly in the 1960s developed shaped canvases to push beyond convention.

Extending this lineage, Pascal cuts and assembles non-rectangular supports, turning the canvas from window to physical object. This lays groundwork for later folding: the canvas becomes an active protagonist.

2. Horizontal and Vertical Folds: Energy Congealed

Shifting focus to the surface, Pascal introduces folds that register applied bodily force—pressed, fixed, and coated. Each crease records an action, akin to a breath or tai-chi movement frozen in time, archiving energy rather than image.

This practice echoes Krauss’s “expanded field”: when painting is no longer merely planar, it approaches the borders of sculpture and installation. The fold series is precisely such a cross-disciplinary act.

3. Bernini Series: Baroque Reborn

Building on vertical folds, Pascal’s Bernini Series draws from Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s drapery—folds no longer strict geometry but soft, flowing motion.

Here painting becomes “sculptural painting”: pleats sag and flip like cloth, arresting motion. Abstract severity meets Baroque sensuousness, fusing historically opposed tendencies (minimal restraint vs. baroque drama) into a new path for abstraction.

4. Incense Pouch Series: Cross-Cultural Sign

After moving to Taiwan, Pascal absorbs local culture; the incense pouch (xiang-huo-dai), a protective folk amulet, becomes a key reference. He translates its folded construction into canvas via origami-like structures and automotive/pearl coatings. The result is rigorous geometry warmed by cultural meaning.

Thus his work crosses from pure formal abstraction into cultural abstraction, legible not only aesthetically but also anthropologically.

5. Blossom Series: Sacred Geometry as Spiritual Practice

In the Blossom Series, Pascal integrates sacred geometry (floral rosettes, hexagons, radial schemas) with precise folding. The canvas becomes an energy manifestation: the flower’s opening symbolizes release; geometric order, cosmic law. Works function as meditative objects, inviting contemplative attention.

While resonant with Hilma af Klint’s spiritual abstraction and Olafur Eliasson’s sensory environments, Pascal’s specificity lies in process: each fold is a trace of cultivation—qi in motion—rather than solely an effect for viewers.

6. Scholarly Position: A Continuous Spectrum from Form to Spirit

From shaped canvas to Blossom, Pascal’s path is clear:

• Shaped Canvases: Challenge the boundary of painting.
• Horizontal/Vertical Folds: Congeal energy in the support.
• Bernini Series: Merge minimal coolness with baroque dynamism.
• Incense Pouch Series: Translate cultural sign into abstract form.
• Blossom Series: Culminate in spiritual geometry.

Rather than abrupt shifts, this is a continuous becoming—expanding abstraction from visual experiment to spiritual cultivation.

Summary

Through deformation and folding, Pascal turns painting into an energy archive and cultural vessel, ultimately fusing form, culture, and spirit—an archetype of cross-cultural spiritual abstraction.

Chapter 4: The Continuity and Renewal of Western Abstraction

Though rooted in personal practice and cross-cultural experience, Pascal’s work maintains deep ties to Western abstraction. He inherits a lineage—from Kandinsky’s spirituality, Mondrian’s geometric order, and Malevich’s purity to Minimalism and Concrete Art—yet he also pushes beyond these boundaries, turning canvas into sculptural object and infusing bodily energy and Eastern thought.

1. Continuity of Spiritual Abstraction

Kandinsky framed abstraction as the expression of inner necessity; Mondrian sought universal order; Malevich’s Suprematism reduced painting to pure geometry.

Pascal’s folds and geometric/ origami structures function not as decoration but as indices of energy and spirit. Unlike Mondrian’s rational planning, his geometry arises from bodily and natural flow; unlike Malevich’s “zero degree,” his forms couple purity with vital force—continuing spirituality while transforming it into embodied energy.

2. Minimalism and Concrete Art in Contrast

Minimalism and Concrete Art pursued basic forms and materials (Judd’s “specific objects,” Kelly’s monochrome shapes, the Dutch Nul group’s austere repetitions).

Pascal’s folded canvases share their order and objecthood yet refuse cold affect: folds bear breath and force. If Minimalism aimed at impersonality, Pascal’s marks are personal energy traces—a kind of energetic minimalism.

3. Greenberg’s Formal Autonomy—and Beyond

Greenberg elevated flatness and purity as painting’s essence. Pascal both inherits and challenges this: when canvas becomes three-dimensional, is it still painting? Embracing sculpturality and cultural sign (e.g., the incense pouch), he steps beyond formal autonomy into Krauss’s expanded field.

4. Krauss and the Expanded Field

Krauss noted that contemporary art moves among sculpture, architecture, and landscape. Pascal’s folded canvases sit between painting and sculpture—canvas and paint on one hand, volume and relief on the other—becoming objects in formation. His abstraction thus expands into sculpture, installation, and cultural semiotics, enabling new readings in a plural field.

5. Within Contemporary Dutch Art

Compared to Jan Maarten Voskuil’s shaped canvases, Pascal’s folds emphasize energy and spirituality more than formal play; unlike artists exploring optical illusion, he seeks spiritual affect. He thus occupies a distinctive position in Dutch contemporary art: continuity with innovation.

6. Scholarly Position: Renewal within Continuity

Pascal extends the abstract tradition while reconfiguring it through cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural practice. His abstraction is not a formal game but a synthesis of energy, body, and spirit—a renewal of Western abstraction.

Summary

He pushes abstraction from formal autonomy toward spiritual cross-over, transforming the canvas into an energy field and, via his Netherlands–Taiwan experience, granting abstraction a new life.

Chapter 5: Eastern Philosophy and Bodily Practice

Pascal’s distinctiveness also stems from deep integration of Eastern philosophy and embodied practice. Since settling in Taiwan, he has practiced tai chi and qigong, internalizing these experiences in his process—making his work not only formal experiment but traces of energetic cultivation.

1. Daoist Thought: Following the Thing’s Tendency

Daoism centers on “Dao follows Nature” and non-coercive action. Form should arise from inner tendencies rather than imposition—what Zhuangzi calls “assigning form by following things.”

Pascal’s folds and Blossom structures are not preset calculations; they find form through folding and the flow of paint. The artist guides and yields rather than controls. In contrast to Mondrian’s rational grid, Pascal manifests spontaneous order—two paths to order: one rational, one natural.

2. Bodily Cultivation: The Flow of Qi

Through tai chi and qigong, Pascal experiences qi as an invisible yet palpable energy moving with breath and motion. In the studio, each fold fixes a movement, each crease captures a breath. The works become carriers of energy.

Thus, despite hard materials (canvas, automotive lacquer), the folds reveal soft power—the joining of Eastern body philosophy and Western material language.

3. The Meaning of the Fold: Traces of Breath

For Pascal, the fold is not merely formal but a visible trace of energy—a record of bodily interaction with the canvas. Echoing Deleuze’s notion of the fold as an endlessly extensible dynamic, Pascal’s folds are not static ornament but energy in extension.

4. Cross-Cultural Translation: From the Netherlands to Taiwan

His practice inherits Dutch geometric abstraction while absorbing Taiwanese culture; the Incense Pouch Series typifies this. Transforming a folk amulet into folded canvas, he fuses geometric rigor with religious warmth—works readable in two contexts: continuation of abstract art in the Netherlands and a response to local culture in Taiwan.

5. Scholarly Position: Body—Energy—Form

Pascal’s integration can be summarized as a triad:

1. Body: tai chi/qigong enabling bodily intervention;
2. Energy: folds and flows as qi’s traces;
3. Form: traces solidified into geometry within abstraction.

   This triad opens a new path: renewing Western abstraction from Eastern philosophy outward.

Summary

Daoist spontaneity, bodily cultivation, and cross-cultural translation shape a language of cross-cultural spiritual abstraction—rare in contemporary art.

Chapter 6: The Legacy and Challenge of Spiritual Art

Pascal’s work is an extension of spiritual practice as much as of abstract language. From natural gazes (florals, fluids) to energetic folds and spiritual geometry (Blossom), his central question is: Can art serve as a carrier of spiritual force?

His creation dialogues with the history of spiritual abstraction while acknowledging an irreducible tension: art can point to spirituality, but can it truly transmit it?

1. A Historical Lineage of Spiritual Abstraction

Hilma af Klint’s esoteric paintings, Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Mondrian’s universal order established a tradition of abstraction as spiritual vehicle—a tradition Pascal clearly continues through folds, origami structures, and sacred geometry as visualizations of the invisible.

2. The Contemporary Context

Contemporary spiritual art takes multiple forms: Turrell’s luminous spaces, Eliasson’s sensory ecologies, Bill Viola’s meditative videos.

Pascal shares the aim of eliciting spiritual experience but differs by emphasizing the artist’s own cultivation. His works carry two layers:

1. Spirituality of making—folds as congealed breath and qi;
2. Spirituality of viewing—geometry and color inviting meditation.

   His art thus enacts two-way spirituality.

3. Sacred Geometry Today

In the Blossom Series, sacred geometry (rosettes, radials, hexagons) fuses with precise folding. Blossoming signifies life’s release; geometry, cosmic law. Works become meditative objects—form and spirit entwined—positioning Pascal uniquely within contemporary abstraction.

4. Tension and Doubt: Can Spirituality Be Transmitted?

Pascal also maintains critical awareness: do materialized traces retain spiritual charge? Is the viewer’s felt force a continuation of cultivation or merely formal effect?

This productive doubt gives the work philosophical depth. In Hal Foster’s terms, contemporary art’s value often lies in exposing contradiction rather than resolving it; Pascal exposes the contradiction between art and spirit.

5. Scholarly Position: A Contemporary Exponent of Spiritual Abstraction

He:

• Extends early spiritual abstraction (af Klint, Kandinsky, Mondrian);
• Engages contemporary spiritual vocabularies (Turrell, Eliasson, Viola);
• Embeds cultivation in process;
• Sustains critical inquiry into transmission.

  This dual stance—affirmation and skepticism—distinguishes his practice.

Summary

Pascal elevates abstraction to the spiritual while revealing its tension with spirituality, making him an important representative of cross-cultural spiritual abstraction today.

Chapter 7: Positioning Cross-Cultural Spiritual Abstraction

Ultimately, Pascal’s work inhabits a field of cross-cultural spiritual abstraction—shaped by his life (Dutch upbringing, residence in Taiwan), cultural absorption (European abstraction, Eastern philosophy and local beliefs), and dialogues across tradition and contemporaneity.

1. The Dutch Abstract Tradition

From De Stijl (Mondrian) to the Nul group/Jan Schoonhoven and to Jan Maarten Voskuil’s shaped canvases, Dutch art repeatedly tests painting’s limits.

Pascal’s folded/ origami canvases inherit this pursuit of purity while pushing into energetic and spiritual generation—both heir and innovator.

2. Cultural Absorption in Taiwan

Since 2016, he has integrated local elements, notably the Incense Pouch Series. By translating the amulet’s fold into canvas, he unites geometric rigor with devotional warmth—not appropriation but internalization through lived experience—readable internationally as the meeting of Dutch abstraction and Taiwanese culture.

3. Personal Cultivation and Cross-Cultural Identity

Long-term tai chi and qigong make each fold a trace of breath and force. As a Dutch-born artist living in Taiwan, his identity is inherently hybrid, and the work becomes a site of cultural convergence.

4. Position in the International Context

His works enjoy dual legibility: in Europe, as renewal of geometric/minimal abstraction; in Asia, as contemporary readings of Daoist thought and folk religion. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s cultural hybridity, the work occupies a “third space”: neither purely Dutch nor purely Taiwanese, but a new language generated at their intersection.

5. Scholarly Position: Defining Cross-Cultural Spiritual Abstraction

• Cross-cultural: between Dutch abstraction and Taiwanese culture; between Western rationality and Eastern spirituality;
• Spiritual: works as traces of energy and cultivation;
• Abstract: folding/origami pushing canvas toward geometric and sculptural thresholds.

  Abstraction becomes not mere formal purification but a synthesis of culture, body, and spirit.

Summary

Situated within international art history, Pascal represents cross-cultural spiritual abstraction—continuing Dutch abstraction, internalizing Taiwanese elements, practicing bodily cultivation, and manifesting cultural hybridity. The works are not just formal play but vessels of spirit and sites of cultural encounter.

Conclusion: The Art-Historical Position of Pascal van der Graaf

Reviewing Pascal’s trajectory, we see a clear path from figuration to abstraction, from gazing at nature to spiritual cultivation—a gradual becoming that aligns inner logic with art-historical tradition and cultural milieu.

1. From Nature to Form

Early works—flowers, landscapes, fluid painting—express vitality and energetic flow, extending Dutch traditions while focusing on natural force. Birdhouse (2007) radicalizes this into black-and-white structure, opening the threshold to abstraction.

2. Folded Canvases and the Emergence of Abstraction

   After 2007, Pascal shifted his focus to the canvas itself. Through irregular formats and horizontal or vertical folds, the canvas became a solidified form of energy. Entering the “Bernini Series,” the folds were no longer merely geometric but carried a Baroque dynamism. Later, in the “Incense Pouch Series,” he brought Taiwanese culture into abstraction, making the works more than just formal experiments but intersections of culture and spirit. His most recent “Blossom Series” employs sacred geometry and origami structures to visualize spiritual power. This trajectory of abstraction embodies an evolution from form to spirituality.

3. Continuity and Renewal of Western Abstraction

Pascal’s works extend the tradition of spiritual abstraction founded by Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich, while also resonating with the formal purity of Minimalism and Concrete Art. Yet he did not remain confined to formal autonomy; instead, he combined folds with energy, infusing abstraction with corporeality and spirituality. He broke through Greenberg’s framework of “formal autonomy” and moved toward what Krauss called the “expanded field”—a space between painting and sculpture that also enters a cross-cultural dimension.

4. Eastern Philosophy and Bodily Cultivation

Living in Taiwan, Pascal absorbed Daoist thought such as following the natural flow (sui wu fu xing), along with the bodily practices of tai chi and qigong. Each fold becomes a trace of breath and force, a visualization of energy in motion. He no longer pursues rational geometry but allows form to emerge naturally. This creative method is both an innovation of form and an extension of cultivation. His works thus become an interweaving of body, energy, and form.

5. The Inheritance and Questioning of Spiritual Art

Within the lineage of spiritual art, Pascal continues the traditions of Hilma af Klint and Mondrian, while entering into dialogue with contemporaries such as James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson. His distinctiveness lies in the fact that he not only creates a spiritual atmosphere for viewers but also practices cultivation in the process of creation. His works thus embody both “traces of the artist’s cultivation” and “objects of meditation for the viewer.”

At the same time, he retains a critical stance: can art truly transmit spiritual power? This questioning makes his works not only instruments of affirming spirituality but also philosophical inquiries. They expose the tensions between art and spirituality, giving his practice greater depth.

6. Positioning of Cross-Cultural Spiritual Abstraction

Pascal’s uniqueness lies in his “cross-cultural” position. The Dutch geometric abstraction tradition intersects with Taiwanese cultural symbols and philosophies in his work. This hybridity allows his practice to be understood within the genealogy of Western abstraction while also being interpreted within the context of Asian culture. His works embody what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space”: neither purely Dutch nor solely Taiwanese, but a new language generated through their encounter.

Pascal van der Graaf’s art-historical positioning can be summarized as Cross-Cultural Spiritual Abstraction:

• Abstraction: He extends and renews the traditions of geometric abstraction and Minimalism.
• Spirituality: He incorporates tai chi, qigong, and sacred geometry, making his works traces of energy and cultivation.
• Cross-Culturality: Situated between the Netherlands and Taiwan, his practice reflects a dual context and cultural hybridity.

These three qualities secure him a unique place in contemporary art. His works not only continue the tradition of abstraction but also expand its boundaries, transforming abstraction into a synthesis of culture and spirituality.

Pascal van der Graaf’s works embody a “becoming abstraction”: arising both from the gaze upon nature and from bodily cultivation; continuing the Western tradition of abstraction while absorbing Eastern concepts of energy; functioning both as a formal innovation and a spiritual inquiry. Ultimately, his art establishes a new position within contemporary practice: the representative of cross-cultural spiritual abstraction.