GEISAI Taiwan Report 9/ Stage Artists Personal Awards

Today’s report is on the GEISAI Taiwan artist prize awardees – the prize was given by each of the 4 artists who gave powerful stage performance for the event!!!

Please click here for detailed report on the GEISAI Taiwan stage events:
http://www.geisai.net/g14/news/newspage.php?id=39


●Cosmos People Prize:

Peng-Chun Kuo

Born in 1985.
Graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (London), BA Graphics Design (Illustrations) in 2007.
While she was studying there, she had the opportunity to think about the idea of the cross-cultural appreciation, and became aware that “Taiwan as a nation does not seem to have many unique visual languages.”
She told us that in her opinion, since the nation often adapts foreign ideas as they are and most cultural booms born in the country quickly fade away, they hardly have enough time to translate the new concept into their own language.
She later moved from Taipei to Tainan and started to explore the traditional Taiwanese colors by walking around on the streets of Tainan city and re-discovering the warm colors on the doors, windows, or balconies of the historical residents there to adapt them as her creative inspirations.
She is currently devoted to produce uniquely arranged Taiwanese traditional festive ornaments for the Chinese New Year, and enthusiastically commented: “the prize gave me further encouragement to move forward, and to keep holding more solo exhibitions.”

Website: www.arielkuo.com


●WonFu Prize

aska-studio.tw/Lee Dong-Jun

Dong-Jun started to draw and paint with his older brother since his childhood, but went to the IT training school for 5 years with the advice of his family. Like any other ordinary Taiwanese fathers and mothers, his parents wanted him to major in IT-related technologies because “it would make him better prepared for the future.”
In spite of the circumstances, he kept his strong desire to pursue what interested him the most and after having worked for a foreign graphic design agency, decided to launch his own studio.
Dong-Jun actually ventured into the world of art using actual paints (instead of digital methods) for the first time with the exhibited works in GEISAI. Since it required him to begin virtually from the scratch where he even asked shop owners for detailed instructions on how he should choose the materials, the result “made me pretty excited”. But on the other hand, the artist was coolheaded enough to make a comment that “There are far more room to learn about the basic skills, as that is what I lack in.”
Website: www.aska-studio.tw


●Deserts Chang Prize

Wang Lee-Chung

Although Lee-Chung majored in English and graduated from Fu Jen Catholic University and did not formally study arts, scribbling has been one of his favorite amusements since he was a child and he still keeps painting.
He originally had not intended to entirely focus on the creative activities, but Tim-san, an English painter who was a friend of his encouraged him to start the career as an artist.
So it might be said thatTim-san , who was visiting the Fu Jen Catholic University to promote his picture book was “the very person who made Lee-Chung decide to totally devote himself to his creative activities”.
Lee-Chung, who had originally thought that “getting nominated would have as great a meaning for him as getting awarded”, and was pretty surprised and at the same time, filled with pleasure.
“Particularly since I did not majored in art, I was overwhelmed by the brilliant works by the other exhibiting artists. So it means a great deal to me being awarded this time.” The artist commented.
Currently, he is planning for a project titled SECRET in collaboration with the students who is studying at the university he has graduated. They will ask every participant to produce his(her) original post card and mail it to the project office so that they will discover their inner secrets – those subjects people would rather keep inside their mind than openly talk about.
The project will take place in March, 2010.


●Crowd Lu Prize

Wang Hsi-Chueh

Hsi-Chueh is a 28-year-old artist from Chang Hua, the city in the middle of Taiwan, and got her degree in art at the graduate institute of the National Kaohsiung Normal University.
She told “Since I was undergraduate, I would always immersed into the creative process once I start working on my artworks, and the very immersion drove me into further pursuit of the concept of ‘creativity’ itself.”
After moving on to the master course, in her attempt to further develop her original Robot series, she decided to apply the primitive grayscale palette for her works and introduced the black-and-white fuser into the process.
The series is a result of her self-reflection and played the main part in her GEISAI exhibition booth.
As for the production process, she commented: “I wanted the robots to reflect myself, and it was a continuous process of self identification.”
While she currently makes her living in web design and art-related business, whenever she finds time, she works on her original paintings.
She eagerly told us that: “The prize was perfect for me because I feel a lot of sympathy towards the artist especially he has produced a title song for Mazinger Z”

Website: http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/chair-robothouse/


Coincidentally, all the awardees earned their awards with paintings!! And they all seem to be driven with the sheer joy to paint.

Congratulations to Peng-Chun Kuo, aska-studio.tw/Lee Dong-Jun, Wang Lee-Chung, and Wang Hsi-Chueh!