【專訪】2026 Fiesta Art金獎得主：台灣當代藝術家 謝淑貞 Hsieh, Shu-Chen
祈願之火與靈性之巔：在當代水墨中追尋更高層次的藝術目標與「崇高（the Sublime）」
【記者 吳慧蓮 張和坤 印度報導】2026/01/04
[Feature Interview]
2026 Fiesta Art “Gold Award” Winner, Taiwanese Contemporary Artist Hsieh, Shu-Chen
The Luminescence of Prayer and the Peak of Spirit — Pursuing “The Sublime” within Contemporary Ink Aesthetics
By Wu Hui-Lien (Anasha) and Zhang He-Kun reporting from India | January 4, 2026
在煙雲的細膩過度之間，彷彿能聽見靈性的呼吸。作品《寄語天燈》“Sky Lantern Wishes”（彩墨紙本, 68 x 68 cm）憑藉卓越的視覺張力與跨文化共鳴，為台灣當代水墨在國際藝術賽事中樹立鮮明的標竿位置。2026印度「國際慶典藝術大賽」(2026 International Fiesta Art Competition, India) 金獎得主謝淑貞(Hsieh, Shu-Chen)，畢業於德明科技大學，並於國立台灣藝術大學教育中心研習，其創作歷程橫跨兩岸與國際，累積豐富展覽經驗。她持續思考「文化符徵」在當代的再詮釋，特別關注如何將深具在地精神的視覺符號「全球化」，將天燈從民俗節慶的表層意象中抽離，昇華為人類「集體心理的投射」；並把東方特有的內斂氣韻，轉化為跨文明皆可感受的普世情感，使水墨成為當代國際脈絡中可被閱讀、也能被共鳴的視覺語言。
作品《寄語天燈》的構圖穩健，畫面被巧妙分為上下兩個相互呼應的世界：上方是夜空與雲層承載的天燈軌跡，下方是古鎮街道與人群活動，形成「天與地、人與願」的對話結構，展現哲學深度。她以傳統水墨的靜謐筆韻，結合現代淡彩的光影層次，凝聚出一種「光的祈願」。橙色暖燈與冷藍夜空之間鮮明卻不刺眼的對比，精準映照出當代社會中「渴望與焦慮並存」的集體心境。畫面中層層墨韻所「過度」出的溫潤光體，可視為對明代陳繼儒、董其昌等人所推崇「煙雲供養」精神的現代回應——古代文人以山水煙雲滋養身心、怡情養性，而在謝淑貞筆下，這份煙雲之氣已被轉化為生態與文明壓力下的「共生想像」，將古典審美延伸為一種面向當代倫理與全球處境的視覺思考。
作品描繪的不僅是一場民俗儀式，更關鍵的是，她捕捉到「希望」如何在心理結構中運作：當天燈緩緩交付夜空，那不只是願望的升空，也是人類在不確定年代裡對和平、安穩與永恆的堅定渴求。簡潔而具標誌性的視覺符號，使作品具有高度辨識度與傳播力，因而在評選視角中自然成為本屆展覽精神的一種濃縮象徵。也在這樣的評價基礎上，作品獲得創辦人拉克什·庫馬爾·喬杜里博士（Dr. Rakesh Kumar Chaudhary）、主辦單位「賓達斯藝術集團」（Bindaas Artist Group）及評審團一致推崇，選為官方大賽畫冊封面與封底的主視覺，成為本屆賽事最具指標性的藝術形象之一。
相較於《寄語天燈》向上昇騰的集體情感，另一件作品《玉之山》“The Spirit of Yushan”（畫布壓克力, 73 x 75cm）則從地景走向靈性，是另一條更為內省的觀看路徑。畫面以冷藍與灰色調構築出雄峻卻寧靜的山巒與雲霧，畫幅下方的白色枝狀紋理如同生命脈絡在大地之中延展流動，一隻鹿佇立其間，成為觀者視線與精神投射的聚焦點，象徵純淨、靈性與守護。這件作品將玉山從慣常被賦予的「疆域與認同」隱喻中抽離，轉化為一種沉穩而長久的「生命母體」意象，再次回應人與自然如何在相互依存中尋找平衡的哲思，並在東方山水的語彙裡，開啟近乎宇宙論式的生命視角。
《寄語天燈》與《玉之山》在動與靜、群體祈願與個體凝視、仰望夜空與回望山林之間形成一套完整的雙重敘事，也清晰勾勒出藝術家創作中情感與思想並行的軌跡。謝淑貞的藝術實踐顯示，當代水墨早已超越形式與技法的層面，不再只是筆墨語言的延續，而是一種能夠承載文化記憶、回應時代焦慮並提出精神命題的思想媒介。透過這道從台灣升起的祈願之光，她把東方水墨傳統中極為重視的「氣韻」與「神韻」，轉化為當代觀者可感、可思、亦可共鳴的視覺經驗——不再侷限於審美愉悅，而指向一種關於「崇高」與「靈性」的更高層次追求。最後，她在作品中提出的，或許是一個溫柔卻銳利的提問：在這個高度不確定的年代，人類是否仍然願意相信——那些被寫進光影與煙雲中的願望，依然值得被看見？
藝術家：謝淑貞
學歷：
德明科技大學畢業
國立台灣藝術大學教育中心研習
參展經歷：
2015 港澳台美協北京聯展
2016 香港石景宜博士盃華夏書畫創作得獎作品展
2016 港澳台魯家邀請展
2017 港澳台美協理事暨兩岸書畫名家邀請展
2019 古漕新韻千秋傳承兩岸青年藝術展
2020 書香墨韻情聚泉城濟台書畫家聯展
2020 第十三屆全國美術作品展
2020 四海同心聯誼書畫展
2020 威海明德藝術館邀請展
2021 國軍53屆文藝金像獎展
2021 古漕新韻千秋傳承兩地青年藝術展
2022 古漕新韻千秋傳承兩地青年藝術展
2022 相聚廈門兩岸國畫藝術論談畫展
2023 港澳台美協理事暨兩岸書畫名家邀請展
2023 紫蓮慈善公益聯合畫展
2023 中國美術協會員聯展
2024 中國美術協會員聯展
2025 中國美術協會員聯展
2026 印度「國際慶典藝術大賽暨線上展覽」
獲獎紀錄：
2016 21世紀書畫作家國際交流協會日本特選獎
2016 第二屆香港石景宜博士盃創作大賽佳作獎
2018 第六屆海峽盃全國書畫台灣國畫一等獎
2019 第十三屆中國美術家全國美術作品入選獎
2019 第53屆國軍文藝金像獎優選獎
2019 港澳台美協理事暨兩岸書畫名家邀請展優等獎
2019 兩岸四地書畫邀請展優秀獎
2021 古漕新韻兩岸青年作品展二等獎
2026 印度「國際慶典藝術大賽暨線上展覽」金獎
[Feature Interview]
2026 Fiesta Art “Gold Award” Winner, Taiwanese Contemporary Artist Hsieh, Shu-Chen
The Luminescence of Prayer and the Peak of Spirit — Pursuing “The Sublime” within Contemporary Ink Aesthetics
By Wu Hui-Lien (Anasha) and Zhang He-Kun reporting from India | January 4, 2026
Amid the delicate gradations of ink mist, something like the breath of spirit becomes audible. Hsieh, Shu-Chen’s “Sky Lantern Wishes” (Ink and Color on Paper, 68 x 68 cm) asserts a commanding presence in the international arena, its visual force and cross-cultural resonance setting a distinctive benchmark for Taiwanese contemporary ink painting. As the Gold Award Winner at India’s 2026 International Fiesta Art Competition, Hsieh—a graduate of Takming University of Science and Technology with further studies at the National Taiwan University of Arts—draws on a rich exhibition history spanning Taiwan, the mainland, and global platforms. Her practice interrogates the contemporary valence of cultural signifiers, probing how deeply indigenous visual symbols might transcend their origins to achieve universal legibility. By extricating the sky lantern from its folkloric veneer, she elevates it into a collective psychological projection; she transfigures the innate restraint of Eastern qi-yun (spirit resonance) into a shared emotional lexicon, positioning ink as a resonant discourse in today’s global visual culture.
The composition of “Sky Lantern Wishes” unfolds with structural poise, cleaved into two interdependent realms: above, the nocturnal expanse and stratified clouds cradle the lanterns’ ascending arcs; below, the lantern-lit thoroughfares of an ancient town pulse with human endeavor. This bifurcation—heaven and earth, humanity and aspiration—imbues the work with philosophical gravitas. Hsieh marries the contemplative cadence of traditional ink brushwork to the luminous strata of modern color washes, distilling a “prayer of light.” The vivid yet tempered contrast between amber lanterns and indigo night serves as a precise analogue for the contemporary psyche: longing shadowed by unease. Through these nebulous transitions of ink, luminous forms emerge, echoing the Ming dynasty literati ideal of spiritual cultivation through mist and clouds (yan-yun gong-yang), as espoused by Chen Jiru and Dong Qichang. Where ancient scholars found psychic nourishment in landscape vapors, Hsieh reconfigures this atmospheric sustenance as a symbiotic imagination amid ecological and civilizational strains, propelling classical aesthetics toward an ethical engagement with planetary exigencies.
The piece transcends mere ritual depiction; it anatomizes hope’s psychic architecture. As lanterns are consigned to the void, the act embodies not fleeting whims but humanity’s tenacious pursuit of peace, equilibrium, and perpetuity in an epoch of flux. This emblematic clarity—iconic, transmissible—rendered it the exhibition’s spiritual distillate. Thus, Dr. Rakesh Kumar Chaudhary, founder of the Bindaas Artist Group, along with the organizers and jurors, anointed it as the official catalog’s cover and back-cover motif, cementing its status as the edition’s preeminent artistic emblem.
In counterpoint to “Sky Lantern Wishes” communal upward surge, Hsieh’s companion piece, “The Spirit of Yushan” (Acrylic on canvas, 73 x 75 cm), charts an introspective trajectory from topography to metaphysics. Cool blues and grays forge a monumental yet serene mountainscape, veiled in mist; at the canvas’s lower edge, dendritic white patterns unfurl like vital conduits through the terrain, with a lone deer poised in the interstitial space—a nexus for the viewer’s spiritual projection, evoking purity, guardianship, and attunement. Here, Yushan is liberated from its entrenched metaphors of territory and identity, recast as an abiding matrix of life. The work reprises the dialectic of human-nature interdependence, not as idyllic harmony but as a cosmological proposition articulated through the grammar of Eastern landscapes.
Together, “Sky Lantern Wishes” and “The Spirit of Yushan” constitute a consummate dual narrative: motion against stillness, collective invocation versus solitary vigil, celestial gaze versus terrestrial introspection. This interplay delineates the emotional and intellectual contours of Hsieh’s oeuvre, where contemporary ink emancipates itself from formalist constraints. No longer a mere perpetuation of brush and wash, it emerges as a conceptual vessel—bearing cultural memory, confronting zeitgeist anxieties, and framing spiritual inquiries. Through this radiance emanating from Taiwan, she renders qi-yun and shen-yun (divine charm) into palpable experiences for the modern beholder, transcending aesthetic gratification to invoke the Sublime: that Kantian confrontation with immensity, awe, and aspiration. In the end, Hsieh tenders a query both poignant and probing: in this era of radical precarity, do we yet affirm that wishes, inscribed in light and vapor, merit our unwavering regard?
Education:
Graduated from Takming University of Science and Technology
Studied at the Education Center of National Taiwan University of Arts
Exhibition Experience:
2015 Beijing Joint Exhibition of Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the U.S. Artists Association
2016 Dr. Shek King Yee Cup Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Award Exhibition, Hong Kong
2016 Cross-Strait Artists Invitational Exhibition (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Shandong)
2017 Cross-Strait Famous Calligraphers and Painters Invitational Exhibition
2019 Ancient Canal Cultural Heritage Cross-Strait Youth Art Exhibition
2020 Ji-Tai Cross-Strait Calligraphy and Painting Joint Exhibition
2020 13th National Art Exhibition of China
2020 “Unity Across the Seas” Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition
2020 Weihai Mingde Art Museum Invitational Exhibition
2021 53rd Armed Forces Literary and Art Awards Exhibition
2021 Ancient Canal Cultural Heritage Cross-Regional Youth Art Exhibition
2022 Ancient Canal Cultural Heritage Cross-Regional Youth Art Exhibition
2022 Cross-Strait Chinese Painting Forum Exhibition, Xiamen
2023 Cross-Strait Famous Calligraphers and Painters Invitational Exhibition
2023 “Purple Lotus” Charity Art Exhibition
2023 Chinese Artists Association Joint Exhibition
2024 Chinese Artists Association Joint Exhibition
2025 Chinese Artists Association Joint Exhibition
2026 International Fiesta Art Competition & Online Exhibition, India
Awards:
2016 Special Selection Award, Japan, 21st Century International Painting & Calligraphy Exchange Association
2016 Merit Award, 2nd Dr. Shek King Yee Cup Art Competition, Hong Kong
2018 First Prize, 6th Cross-Strait Cup National Painting Competition (Taiwan Division)
2019 Selected Award, 13th National Art Exhibition of China
2019 Excellence Award, 53rd Armed Forces Literary and Art Awards
2019 Outstanding Award, Cross-Strait Famous Calligraphers and Painters Invitational Exhibition
2019 Excellent Award, Cross-Strait and Four Regions Calligraphy & Painting Invitational Exhibition
2021 Second Prize, Ancient Canal Cross-Strait Youth Art Exhibition
2026 Gold Award, International Fiesta Art Competition & Online Exhibition, India
