National Large-sized Oil Paintings Exhibition 2019｜Taichung City Seaport Art Center

Celebrating its 18th anniversary, the National Large-sized Oil Painting Exhibition, as its title suggests, hopes to offer a platform for artists from all over Taiwan to stand in the spotlight, to compete with their best skills and strength in artmaking, and to challenge the pre-existing path of art in search of something alternative.
As an art award limited to certain medium and size, it is indeed a challenge to all participators.  Larges-size painting requires some overwhelming artistic momentum and mature command of the medium, while it is also an opportunity for painters to demonstrate their ability to manage and balance the outpouring of art in a spontaneous way.  Generally speaking, this year’s exhibition still features a majority of figurative paintings, although there are also a great amount of abstract works.  The two main categories, figurative and abstract paintings, reveal different philosophies of life and artistic styles, as inclusive as the diverse artistic visions of the exhibition.      

When it comes to the choices of subjects this year, most of the works return to self-reflection as their main artistic approach.  Some integrates the form of a family portrait with techniques showing the artist’s signature to highlight a dark, weathered texture symbolic of the artist’s possible anxiety and inner disturbance during a transitional stage of life, while the facial expression has a gentle and peaceful touch to stabilize the painted family love.  There are also works borrowing the composition of group portraits of people praying or participating in a ceremony to reflect upon human’s relation with gods and heaven.  Other examples include the paintings of nostalgic sentiments to visualize the scenes from the past, or a detailed depiction of nature or everyday scenery as a thought-provoking expression to evoke the memories and emotions no longer here.  Some works, if not many, adopt metaphors and exaggerations to mirror the current issues and situations relating to Taiwan’s social system and structure.  Meanwhile, the abstract paintings show a stronger tendency toward the interrelated patterns and representations between the forms and contents, or in some cases, the shapes and shapes which constitute the nature as perceived by the artist to idealistically create a pure visual harmony and aesthetic effect for viewers.  In other paintings, the abstract techniques become an artistic vocabulary embodying the intangible metaphysical or subconscious emotion flow or thread of thoughts, through which the artists may want to capture the transient moments of the world. 

The stage and spotlight have been set up for the artists to enjoy their presence and the applause from the crowd.  It also encourages artists to gather up their energy and ambition as needed, within certain regulations, to find their own artistic breakthrough and to challenge the usual expectation of the awards.  The eventual attempt is to open up a new horizon of artmaking, where viewers or even the two-dimensional arts in Taiwan may be led to a world of arts beyond its vastness.