The biennial CTBC Painting Prize aims to encourage and discover the contemporaneity and spirit of painting. Since its inception, it has become one of the most prominent painting awards in Taiwan. The CTBC Painting Prize not only aims to enhance the visibility of painting as a traditional medium in contemporary times, but also encourages artists to use the medium to express their innovative spirit. Through the competitive nature of the award, it is hoped that the development of contemporary painting in Taiwan will be further stimulated.

Over the past half-century, there have been  various discussions about painting and its development. The earliest of these came from Clement Greenberg, who argued that painting should pursue pure visuality, abandoning the pursuit of spatial depth and representation, and supporting the development of Abstract Expressionism. Later, Michael Fried criticized Minimalism for its materiality and theatricality, predicting the decline and imminent death of art. However, art—or painting specifically—has never really died or disappeared. Rather, it has revealed more possibilities over time. In the second half of the 20th century, painting continued to evolve with the social environment, with continuous transformationsin both form and content. Whether inspired by the mass communication of images driven by technological advancements, giving rise to Pop Art, or affected by visual experiences leading to shifts in concepts and styles (such as Photorealism), painting has always aligned with the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) and cultural content. Inadvertently, it has got rid of hallucination-creating features, and instead often exhibits a capacity for “disarticulation-rearticulation.”
 

This process reflects the artist’s attempt to mark their perception on the world or life, internalize it, and transform it into a possible path for exploring the world. Clearly, as a medium regarded as “traditional,” the weakening or disappearance of painting has always been a point of concern. For example, in 2009, Taiwan,“Weak Painting” exhibition sparked a wave of discussion on the painting practices of the time. However, as time passes, using an expansive timeline to understand the development of painting during each period, concerns about its weakness or demise always arise from the perspectives of the commentator’s speculation or conjecture based on the present and future views. In fact, the barriers of history are always in flux. To understand painting from functional, aesthetic, or purely appreciating perspectives now seems outdated. Only by closely aligning with the trajectory of contemporary developments can painting and its shifts be understood—enabling the innovation of techniques and inquiry into real life. This approach moves away from the exclusive pursuit of pure form and aesthetics in painting, allowing the grand narrative of “What is (or should be) contemporary painting?” to resonate within its corresponding historical context.

The first CTBC Painting Prize in 2021 awarded the First Prize to Tsai Yi-Ju’s Good Time – The War Without Gunfire – War No. 19, the Merit Prizes were awarded to Chou Tai-Chun’s Island Stories: Past and Present, and Hsieh Mu-Chi’s The Scene on a Junk Boat, and Su Huang-Sheng’s Cherish Every Moment Before Tonight. These award-winning works revealed how the CTBC Painting Prize and its jury interpret the characteristics and roles of contemporary painting. Whether connected to social issues or opening up new forms, the winning pieces all serve as demonstrations of “what contemporary painting can be.” Based on the shortlisted announced in the 2nd edition, although it is regrettable that there is no first prize, the Honorable Mention and Merit Prize nevertheless demonstrate the artists’ dedication and efforts to material experimentation, technical innovation, and the pursuit of subject matter and concepts. Besides, the jury also showed great care in considering what spirit contemporary painting should embody, awarding the works with deserved recognition. In overall, the five Merit Prize and their artists’ creative contexts reveal that artists nowadays are still dedicated to engaging with contemporary societal phenomena, exploring how the creation of concepts can open up alternative possibilities for viewing paintings.

Firstly, the three awarded Merit Prize are based on traditional materials or forms. Hung Hsuan’s Life Will Find Its Way Out, Tseng Ting-Yu’s 23 Lao Geng- Sky View, and Hsiao Pei-I’s Treasure Ship II all attempt to merge traditional techniques and forms with personal observations of life, further assimilating them into various visual representations. Hung Hsuan’s creative approach is diverse. In 2017, Gong Di Ju (供帝居) used construction materials and reinterpreted traditional ink language to create a painting installation. This work reflects the artist’s attempt to merge contemporary life with traditional ink painting. Life Will Find Its Way Out employs a chessboard motif, trapped pigeons, and concrete jungle imagery, all intertwined in a four-panel screen. While each section is independent, there is also a sense of connection in the composition, with balanced and delicate spacing between the dense left side and the sparse right side, showcasing the artist's solid layout skills. Next, the composition interweaves elements such as the chessboard, rebar, trapped pigeons, and collapsing buildings, clearly presenting the theme of difficult breakthroughs. In terms of ink painting, it not only showcases the artist's technique but also resonates with contemporary life situations.

Tseng Ting-Yu’s 23 Lao Geng- Sky View combines traditional landscape painting with foil techniques, attempting to highlight contemporary societal realities and spectacles through the juxtaposition of landscapes and aerial drones. The overwhelming presence of machines not only refers to ubiquitous surveillance but also symbolizes how technology reshapes our understanding of nature and reality. Through the landscapes presented by technology, the hidden digital and virtual textures raise the question: Do they bring us closer to reality, or do they, much like traditional landscape painting, present a constructed ideal? Hsiao Pei-I’s work Treasure Ship II is similarly grounded in tradition, using its narrative to probe contemporary life. According to the artist, the creative process involves several intricate steps, such as first sketching the composition with a technical pen, then scanning the drawing into a computer to apply color. The coloring process involves techniques such as sulfur powder corrosion, silk printing, and hand painting to create a layered texture. The content distills and reinterprets events from real life, drawing inspiration from war and political struggles. “Treasure Ship II” clearly conveys the image of “the stranded ark,” resembling a landscape of ruins or a resource recycling site. This reflects the excess of resources in contemporary society and the situation shaped by anthropocentric development. Themes of marginalization, waste, death, uselessness, and excess are encapsulated within the picture, with some animals staring directly at the viewer, intensifying the sense of accusation.

Among the artists awarded the Merit Prize in this edition, Luo Jr-Shin’s piece stands out particularly. Strictly speaking, Luo is not a painter; he is an artist with a strong background in sculpture and spatial concepts, belonging to the realm of conceptual art. His work Paint Snails With Snail Paint continues the exploration of material properties and their relationship to life in his creative context. As the title suggests, he ground snail shells into pigment and contours their shape on the canvas. This intertextual relationship between the title and imagery outlines a darkly humorous profile. The snail, as a painting material, is reborn through art from the valley of death, becoming the material foundation for its own likeness. From another perspective, Luo Jr-Shin subtly hints at the human body and its desires through the processing of form and texture combined with the association of mucus. Nevertheless, Paint Snails With Snail Paint brings to mind John Berger’s idea that “seeing comes before words” — we may think we are merely looking at a snail, but the meaning contained in the work goes far beyond the image itself.

Wu Yih-Han’s The Madonna And The Whore continues her long-standing focus on female issues and the exploration of portraiture. In this work, a voluptuous woman holds a fine needle, piercing a balloon while making eye contact with the viewer outside the frame. In the background, a slender girl gazes beyond the balloon, focusing on the woman’s gesture and the needle. This simple background and composition—anchored by a stable triangular structure—suggest an X-shaped dynamic, with high contrast black-and-white tones creating tension. This snapshot-like image strongly captures the viewer’s attention while creating a sense of suspense and a dramatic incident scene. Female portraits have been Wu Yi-Han’s continuous theme for years, as she has developed the ability to capture the nuances of real-life situations, daily routines, and character traits through reading and observing. Her mastery of the painting techniques inherited from the Flemish tradition is evident in The Madonna And The Whore. The title of the piece also raises a question for the viewer: how are the images of The Madonna and the Whore constructed? And when we see the two women in the painting, how do we make associations with these representations?

A comprehensive overview of this year’s Honorable Mention and the Merit Prize, it is evident that artists exhibit the diversity of painting through material attributes, thematic forms, and other aspects. From interviews with artists, it is clear that technologies like photography and computer post-processing have influenced the creation of their work. This technical approach, which moves away from the “purity of materials,” is one of the characteristics of contemporary painting. However, some works focus on brushstrokes, crafted quality, and deliberate imprecision, also representing an alternative path in contemporary painting in response to the influence of technology. Arthur Danto, in “After the End of Art,” argued that the philosophization of art has progressively allowed works once excluded from art history to be encompassed within the artistic realm. This suggests that concepts and thought are what ultimately define art. Returning to painting, once exclusively favored by art history, a question arises: What kinds of works can be considered within the grand narrative of “What is (or should be) contemporary painting?” In relation to Danto’s concept, we must first ask: What does contemporary painting seek? In this context, which works can be seen as “demonstrating critical awareness”? Perhaps this is the very issue the CTBC Painting Prize and its jury aim to raise for the audience.

Note 1: As mentioned by Hsiao Pei-I, she scans her sketches into the computer for coloring, while Wu Yi-Han uses software to arrange the composition of her photographs. In fact, many artists in the past have also created works using projection techniques.