Excellence Award
SHEN Tong-Ning
The recipient of this year's Excellence Award is SHEN Tong-Ning, a ceramic artist who is one of the few to blend traditional and modern approaches to his craft. His works span both practical and artistic realms, exuding a warm and refined elegance. His sculptural vocabulary leans toward geometric and abstract forms, utilizing symbols such as openwork windows, abstract landscapes, calligraphy and other motifs. His creations embody both regional and international influences, showcasing remarkable creative achievements in the field of ceramics. The exhibition will feature a total of 46 sets of works spanning his career.
 
SHEN Tong-Ning was born in Hsinchu in 1958. In 1980, he graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Hsinchu Normal School, achieving first place in the Chinese painting group. Subsequently, he secured a teaching position in Taipei. During that period, he engaged in teaching while pursuing the art of ceramics under the mentorship of CHIU Huan-Tang, a ceramic artist. In 1985, SHEN Tong-Ning established his own studio on the top floor of his Wuxing Street apartment in Taipei. His dedication to ceramic practice led him to resign from his teaching position in 1986. In the same year, he made his debut at the 1st Chinese Biennial Ceramics Exhibition held at the National Museum of History, receiving a bronze medal in his inaugural participation. Notably, he won the gold medal at the Biennial Ceramics Exhibition in 1988. Since then, he has won numerous awards and exhibitions.
 
SHEN has been engaged in ceramic art creation for 40 years, and his ceramic practice spans both practical arts and fine arts. SHEN’s works are often referred to as series to express a coherency, such as his “Mental Scenery Series”, “Home Series”, “Landscape Series” and “Indigo Blue Series”. All these series have been collected by major museums, including the National Museum of History, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum.
 
His mentor, CHIU Huan-Tang, once praised SHEN's work which has “possess taste, style, a delicate sensibility, high completeness, not only in form but also in content. And this content is permeated with his strong visual vocabulary, running through the entire series of works, leaving one pondering and reflecting：a push and pull, radiating a sense of affinity.” LIAO Hsin-Tien further described：“He resolutely resigned from his teaching job, independently built a house, and lived in seclusion. Just these actions alone are sufficient to demonstrate that his determination cannot be measured by his lean appearance, not to mention the fact that his works have a highly distinctive brand identity."
 
Ceramics as Vessels：Capturing the Scenery
The concept of “ceramics as a container” is integrated into SHEN Tong-Ning’s creations. However, this does not mean that he only focuses on functional vessels, but suggests he integrates such ideas into his creative expression. Coming from a background of pictorial painting, SHEN gained exposure to ceramic slabs at the early stage of his career, and he was also more interested in slab building. How to realize the nature of a container with a flat slab? By carving the surface with an opening, he then creates an interaction between two and three dimensions—the window on the wall is a container for the scenery.
 
Precise Changes in the Use of Glazes and Clays
Attracted by the naturalness of clay, SHEN, who is passionate about handicrafts, also pursues the textural changes of ceramic. For example, his “Celadon Series” showcase smooth, delicate and elegant qualities with a literati atmosphere; however, the engobe parts are quite natural and rough, with different colors depending on the minerals it contains. Since the two parts should be fired at different temperatures, they are also fired separately before being combined, in an attempt to present the textural changes and contrasting effects of “smooth/rough,” “delicate/bold” on the same piece.
 
Containers of Time and Space
SHEN Tong-Ning enjoys observing the relationship between artificial architecture and natural scenery. When examining his works, one can find that he brilliantly transforms the changing landscape of rock layers in nature into the form of stone blocks manifested through ceramic. In addition to the relationship between architecture and the current space, SHEN also focuses on the relationship between architecture and time. In order to express the traces of time, he utilizes a number of different cutting techniques to present the effect. Especially when SHEN applies monochrome glazes to the ceramic bodies, the shades of color on the edges incorporate the sense of time and space into his works.
 
The Creative Award
The Creative Award aims to encourage the development and innovation of ceramics, to promote this art form, and to recognize those who have excelled in the creation of ceramics in Taiwan.
 
A total of 115 entries were submitted, and 33 entries entered the second stage of review. In the end, 1 Grand Prize winner, 3 High Distinction Award winners, 4 Recommendation Award winners, and 24 finalists were selected.
 
In recent years, the Taiwan Ceramics Awards have attracted the attention of young artists, showing a trend in the development of ceramic arts. From traditional to modern, the forms of ceramic art are constantly changing, blending with cross-disciplinary expressions of the past and the present. We are also seeing creators delve into the ceramic materials, accumulate experiences, emphasizing the fundamentals, which is an essential journey in the creative process. This year’s entries are full of experimentality, from different creative techniques to mixed media, showcasing the artists’ creativity and innovation.
 
Grand Prize Winner: CHANG Yu-Lin
 
Work: Butcher
 
Butcher, work of the Grand Prize winner, CHANG Yu-Lin, was inspired by her first visit to a traditional market, which to her was the best scenery she had ever seen in Taiwan. There was an abundance of produce in the market, especially the offal on skewers at the pork stalls, that were so vivid and vibrant. She burnishes and polishes ceramics, then applies a gold luster overglaze on them to show the vibrancy of life in the market.
 
The Functional Award
A total of 67 entries were submitted, and 33 entries entered the second stage of review. Eventually, 1 Grand Prize winner, 2 High Distinction Award winners, 4 Recommendation Award winners and 26 finalists were selected.
 
Ceramics are objects with both art values and practical purposes, which provide a stage for ceramic artists. The aim of the Functional Award is to “encourage the creation of functional ceramics for daily life, to show that creations come from life, and that they are characterized by a new contemporary aesthetics of life and a unique humanistic outlook,” allowing art to be brought into life and to enhance living quality.
 
Grand Prize Winner: LUO Shrh-Siu
 
The winning entry is a set of tea utensils and table setting, which is inspired by the image of the end of winter to early spring. The white glaze represents the snow cover during the winter solstice, and the shape of the engraved flower implies the first blooming of spring. As making winter or spring teas should avoid steeping, the thin white porcelain is used to create tea utensils that bring out the unique aroma of Taiwan high mountain tea.
 
The Emerging Award
The purpose of the Emerging Award is to encourage young people to engage in ceramic practice and research, and to demonstrate the creativity of the new generation of ceramic artists through innovative programs in artistic concepts, techniques, forms of expression, ceramic textures and the use of cross-media.
 
Nowadays, the types of ceramic practice are very diverse, and the media, display techniques and creative concepts used in art also vary greatly. By projecting the feelings of life and environment onto the works, with the connection and display of different media, artists transform imagination into physical objects to convey it to the viewers. Also, the flow of creating contemporary ceramics will be seen.
 
WANG Yi-Ting: Rebirth from the Abandoned
There are several unknowns and surprises in the process of fossil excavation, similar to the moment when a kiln is opened. In high-pressure and high-temperature environments, minerals replace plant and animal bones to become fossils, which also echoes with the transformation of substances in kilns.
 
Rebirth from the Abandoned explores whether mass produced ceramics with defection, after a century of abandonment and burial, can be replaced by minerals and even evolve and grow into new species, just like those plants and animals. WANG Yi-Ting hand-crafted various abstract creatures with porcelain clay and attached them to the defective vessels. She then buried them in a giant homemade sagger and fired at high temperature, as though producing fossils. When the artist hammered the sagger surface and washed the exterior after firing, the flow of the glaze crystals and the traces of flame energy was visible, as if the reborn species have their own life and expression.
 
SUNG Lee: The Night in the Storm
Images of the night in the storm were recorded in a vintage camera. The night was dyed bright red and everyone was left only with the power of prayer. There was a mysterious force protecting them. It turns out that the sea, while merciless, also shows compassion and inclusiveness. Under the pull of the two forces, the ship survived the frightening night miraculously. This is a wonderful adventure, and the story left behind will continue to be told.