The 2nd CTBC Painting Prize selected 17 works from 802 submissions, after two judging rounds. The first prize was left vacant, and these five Merit Prize were: Wu Yih-Han’s (b. 1982) The Madonna And The Whore, Hung Hsuan’s (b. 1992) Life Will Find Its Way Out, and Hsiao Pei-I’s (b. 1990) Treasure Ship II. The two additional Merit Prize are Tseng Ting-Yu (b. 1983) with 23 Lao Geng- Sky View and Luo Jr-Shin (b. 1984) with Paint Snails With Snail Paint respectively. During the opening press conference, one of the judges, artist Yao Jui-Chung mentioned that the works submitted in this edition were diverse in media, and the judging process was highly intense. Many female artists stood out due to their innovative approaches of materials and framing, which allowed them to shine in the competition. Yao also mentioned “In this edition, classical techniques, environmental sustainability, and gender issues are recurrent themes observed among the awarded works, reflecting how painting continues to evolve in step with contemporary thought.”

Compared to the first edition, the 2nd CTBC Painting Prize places greater emphasis on the alternative and multifaceted nature of contemporary painting, particularly in terms of materials and artistic language. In the previous edition, the works included in first edition, particularly among the Merit Prize and Honorable Mention recipients, predominantly focused on themes with a strong sense of the times. While not intentionally planned by the judges, the results for five Merit Prize recipients in this edition are characterized by a balanced exploration of both genre and material language.

Hung Hsuan, trained in traditional Chinese ink painting, reconfigures scenes from gardens, Go games, and construction sites in her work Life Will Find Its Way Out, reconstructing familiar ink techniques and symbols. By choosing thin silk as her canvas base, she carefully creates a small world for wandering. The postures of the white birds in the four panels create a storyboard-like effect, while there are fine brushstrokes between the outlines reminiscent of comic-style effect lines, adding a touch of non-realistic artistry.

As for Life Will Find Its Way Out, Hung Hsuan’s approach to “painting” carries cross-contextual implications. Comics, illustrations, calligraphy, meticulous brushwork, acrylic lines, and hard pencil strokes can all be contained within a sheet of silk, as light and thin as a screen, without limiting her painting practice to a specific technique. The artist assembles fragments of styles and categories in her work, and the methods and thought processes she employs make her creative approach intriguing. While the work offers a relatively unfamiliar perceptual experience, it also represents a collection of everyday life perceptions and imaginings.

Hsiao Pei-I’s Treasure Ship II employs a variety of techniques, combining sketching, technical pen drawings, digital scanning for coloring and gilding, silk printing, and hand-drawing to create an image reminiscent of an ark. Through these intricate steps, the artist constructs a uniquely layered two-dimensional space, imbued with worn textures that evoke a simultaneously beautiful and apocalyptic world.

Hsiao Pei-I’s works and artistic statements act as mirrors, reflecting her awareness and concerns about the current environment—a scene overflowing with discarded objects, piled and collapsing on blue-and-white plastic sheets. What further distinguishes Treasure Ship II is its meticulous attention to detail and refined layering, which elevate the aesthetic and taste of technique and skill.

Tseng Ting-Yu’s 23 Lao Geng–  Sky View contrasts sharply with the previous works. His focus is on the hand holding the brush, and the lines drawn by the brush tip represent his life experiences and inner spirit, carrying the aesthetic of traditional Chinese ink painting. The artist believes that contemporary life is far removed from traditional landscapes, he stated, “That kind of landscape represents a state of ‘transcendence’—a detachment from the individual, pursuing a spiritual and metaphysical realm. I feel that the nature I depict resembles a fake reproduction. The objects in my works often grow and replicate symbolically, repeatedly, which can be linked to the concept of ‘unity of heaven and humanity.’”

Influenced by the late Ming dynasty “distortion” style, Tseng Ting-Yu depicts contemporary life—drones, people watching movies on seats, DJs at parties—in 23 Lao Geng- Sky View. The work adopts an unpretentious brushstroke style, with a composition that evokes spatiality through the arrangement of a river flanked by two banks. The depiction of rocks in the piece reflects a continual reproduction and imitation of symbols, allowing brushwork techniques traditionally associated with Chinese calligraphy to transform into markers and symbols.

Wu Yih-Han, whose oil painting The Madonna And The Whore received an Honorable Mention, shared in an interview with the CTBC Painting Prize team that the concept for this work came from her reading of the American feminist writer and historical scholar Marilyn Yalom’s book, A History of the Breast (1997). Wu explained, “The text mentions the term ‘Madonna,’ a religious reference, and delves into the symbolic meaning of her breasts. Conversely, when breasts are dissociated from the function of fertility, they may be deemed impure. Through this reading, the concept of The Madonna And The Whore’ gradually took shape. Ultimately, the title was derived from these ideas.” With this awareness and motivation, Wu continued to explore how to bring her understanding of feminism into the painting’s form.

This work employs a minimalist composition to enhance the realism and tension of the scene. Under a stark light, a woman on the left stares at the viewer, holding a needle and pricking a black ball, as if probing the viewer’s gaze. While the ball might initially appear to serve as a compositional element (potentially influenced by the artist’s use of image editing software during the drafting process), it also functions as a distinct painterly presence. The realism shown in the image acts as an appearance, emphasizing the artist’s methodology of embedding ideology into the painting , steering it away from merely being a visual accompaniment to an ideological text, or it may be to express the master’s inheritance in a realistic painting style and master the transformation of creative aesthetics.

Between the figurative The Madonna And The Whore and Luo Jr-Shin’s ambiguous and non-figurative Paint Snails With Snail Paint, lies a perspective worth exploring when imagining “contemporary painting.” While both works maintain certain stylistic and paradigmatic legacies, offering an initial perceptual experience—be it non-figurative, realistic, abstract, or minimalist—their creative essence resides in their engagement with contemporaneity on a deeper level. This leads to critical questions: Is he good at painting? In what context does this “goodness” hold validity? And what contributes to achieving such “goodness”?

Luo Jr-Shin’s concept for Paint Snails With Snail Paint emerged in 2017 after noticing the meticulous “ingredient listings” often associated with contemporary art. This curiosity led him to experiment with organic materials, creating pigments from snail shells, animal glue, and red earth. Through this process, he also projected his thoughts onto the biological traits of snails—moist, sticky, ambiguous, and fluid in gender. When painting the image of a snail with paint made from snail shells, he deliberately interpreted such characteristics in the painting. The resulting image of the snail is non-figurative yet textural, carrying traces of the process. However, the work’s focus extends beyond technical or compositional mastery.

Luo’s approach challenges traditional materialism, creating art from unconventionalmaterials while projecting and transforming their material qualities, which leads to his intriguing “ill-materialism.” Despite the ambiguous and trace-laden depiction of the snail in muted brown tones, we can discern a contemporary painterliness in the piece. By examining the materials and processes that enable this possibility, we uncover the artist’s deeper imagination and care, which resonate through his painterly expressions.