The awards ceremony for the“2023 Bank of Taiwan Arts Festival - Painting, Photography and Calligraphy Season”was held in grandeur on December 22, 2023. Esteemed guests, including Tsung-Huang Hsiao, the Director of National Palace Museum, renowned photographers Jung-Tai Chien, Kuo-chih Chang, and Picasso Chang, as well as master calligrapher Professor Ping-Nan Hsueh, were invited as judges. They gathered to celebrate the abundant accomplishments of this year’s Arts Festival. The ceremony was presided over by Joseph Jye-Cherng Lyu, Chairman of Bank of Taiwan (BOT). At the ceremony, the award-winning pieces were meticulously exhibited, complemented by festive Christmas decorations. The awards ceremony began with the string quartet of cheerful Christmas music, holding a banquet of arts and culture in the holiday atmosphere.
In his lecture, Chairman Lyu quoted from the bible,“Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.”Bank of Taiwan started to upgrade our social responsibility to the level of culture and arts in 2017, gradually improving on the humanistic spirits of the workers and injecting warm power into the society. He also thanked all the participants and judges for their support in the past seven years, while appreciating his predecessors for the brand image they built over the past 124 years, which made the Bank of Taiwan Arts Festival a paradigm worth treasuring. In the meantime, he expected all the colleagues of their bank to serve the customers with a“cool mind and warm heart,”as Alfred Marshall the economist said, bestowing positive power on the society through the achievements accumulated by the arts festival.
Through rigorous rounds of evaluation, 22 winners in the Painting Season, 26 in the Photography Season, and 13 in the Calligraphy Season stood out. For the second year in a row, Kuang-Rong Chen has claimed the top spot in the Painting Season. His artwork,“Moonlit Melody”, captures the essence of finding sweet hope amidst a challenging and discouraging environment. Embarking on his creative journey at the age of 21, he spent more than a decade achieving results. His success serves as a motivating force for other participants, urging them to embrace setbacks as opportunities for growth. With his series of photographs titled“The Splendor of Bao'an Temple”, Jun-Liang Yan, the winner of the BOT gold award in the Photography Season, garnered the admiration of the judging panel. In his speech, he expressed his gratitude for receiving the first prize in his debut competition. He thanked the judges for their affirmation and pledged his ongoing support for Bank of Taiwan’s events. With the belief in art’s ability to purify souls, he aspires to contribute to a more harmonious society. Zi-jing Su, an engineer, emerged as the first-place winner of the Diamond Award in the Calligraphy Season with his remarkable Shan-Gu Huang’s calligraphy font, earning the recognition and favor of the judging panel.
Humbly, he expressed his gratitude to BOT for providing a platform for calligraphy enthusiasts to showcase their talents. For him, this process is a way to connect with himself, the heaven, and all living beings. The 65 award-winning pieces of this year’s Arts Festival will be exhibited across Taiwan after ceremony. They sincerely invite all the art enthusiasts to visit these exhibitions to support local artists with actions, and witness the abundant creative energy of Taiwan’s art scene.