Fung Ming Chip is a reformer of calligraphy, morphing a millennia-old tradition into a practice that reflects contemporary life. He has created more than one hundred calligraphic scripts throughout his career. For Needle Script, the artist blurs the divide between the interior and exterior spaces of his characters by punctuating lightly-painted lines with rich black strokes, slashed across his paper. Fung stamps two of his own hand-carved seals on Accidentally Passing, seen in the upper right and lower left corners. The calligraphy reads:

Accidentally Passing

Strong or weak spirit
Follow the whirling engine
Steadily crossing the equator
Quantity quality and pattern are overpowered
Fooling the physical structure
Confusing time and focusing distance Inverting moon and star
Freezing ideology
Existing will
Exceeding body’s limit 36,000 feet up
Looking down at living earth
Searching for unknown future
Looking over to sky
Shrinking eternity
Thinking ahead
Why is there no darkness

© Fung Ming Chip, photo: Maurice Aeschimann, Geneva