A well-known artist has been teaching visual art at Keelung Prison for five years.
Yan Shang-wen (嚴尚文) has painted in the traditional Japanese style known as gyotaku for 36 years.
Gyotaku, or fish printing, involves applying ink, paint or pigment to the relief side of a fish, which is then pressed onto paper or canvas.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
Yan’s works have sold for millions of dollars at auction and have been displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Five years ago Yan accepted a teaching position at the prison, which hopes to use art to help rehabilitate inmates.
“I am 62 years old. I wanted to act while I still have the ability to help people who nobody else has concern for,” Yan said.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
The Ministry of Justice in 2012 launched a program to promote special characteristics for each prison. Keelung Prison chose to feature the city’s fishing industry through gyotaku printing.
The ministry offered to pay Yan NT$1,600 per lesson.
“I felt that I had the opportunity to serve society, and at my age it was providence as well as my responsibility. I gladly accepted,” Yan said.
Yan has taught more than 100 inmates, only five of whom have been reincarcerated after their release.
Yan said classes demonstrate that marginalized people can develop self-confidence and a sense of achievement through art, adding that it can help with rehabilitation.
“For me, everything started with fishing,” Yan said.
Yan said he first made prints of his catches to record their size, the bait used and the time and place.
He later became interested in fish printing as an art form and started making prints with different numbers, colors and types of fish.
His art eventually gained Yan recognition nationwide.
In 2007 he was invited to make a 2m print of an Atlantic bluefin tuna for the annual Pingtung Bluefin Tuna Cultural Festival with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who drew the tuna’s eyes.
In 2014 Yan’s work was displayed at the Louvre Museum and the museum’s staff wore copies of his prints on their uniforms. The gyotaku print exhibit was the first of its size.
The value of gyotaku art is determined by how rare the fish is, as well as the quality of the print, Yan said.
Preparation takes a long time, but the printing takes five to 10 minutes, Yan said, adding that patience is very important to the process.
“Learning to enter that composed, meditative state of mind is exactly what many inmates need most,” Yan said.
Yan said he would help any of his former inmate students if they found it difficult to find work, adding that he has done so in the past.
People who have visited inmates in the prison have been moved to tears by seeing Yan work with them, the prison said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to