The“Taipei Art Awards”is one of Taiwan’s most forward-looking and indicative visual art awards. Established in 1983, the Awards are held annually to encourage the creation in tune with the spirit of the times and introduce a more diversified array of artistic ideas and creative energy. As such, over the past four decades, the Taipei Art Awards has borne witness to the development of contemporary art in Taiwan. This year, the 2025 Taipei Art Awards will present 10 finalists’ remarkable and unique works: Wang Guan-Jhen, Co-coism (Hung Chien-Han, Chang Kang-Hua), Chen Yen-Chi, Chen Kuang-Jui, Sun Pei-Mao, Shiu Jui-Tsz, Hsieh Chi-Hsun, Hsieh Jung-Wei, Su Jui-Hao, Ku Kuang-Yi.
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I exhaust myself day and night trying to decode a single message.A flat screen, these so-called grand situations, peculiar news and anecdotes, as well as unfinished work and conversations with others, twist my thoughts into a blurred, leftover mess. The red dots showing numbers indicate the accumulation of messages. All the unmanageable matters are cast into the invisible threshold of sight.As I go for a walk, I long for evolving partial perspectives that can form interconnected perceptions, especially through people’s bodily expressions. Cézanne stated, “The landscape thinks itself in me, and I am its consciousness.” Aside from white-tailed magpies hopping in alleys and pedestrians heading to different places, most seated individuals are scrolling through their phones. Those lying down seem homeless. In this patchwork, swaying kingdom, I try to understand why and how messages keep layering up.When I return home, I use found paper to visualize my thoughts and images collected along the way, shaking the wind out of my pockets, adding to the flavor of perception, recapitulating experiences through the syntax of painting, and allowing these elements to interact within the dwelling of thought. Painting is a map of cognition—a scroll of time yet to be unrolled. These pathways of thought inspire me to materialize my ideas, whether they involve the suspended, waiting, anticipating, or approaching states. Before everything turns into words, the message reaches me, saying, “Hi, painting is what propels consciousness.”
