The Artist Space Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the second Monochrome online Art Exhibition. Along with the selected artists, the jury selected award winners in the following art categories: painting, sculpture and photography. The show displayed a variety of artistic styles and mediums: watercolor, acrylic, graphite, oil, charcoal, digital art, photography, crayon, stainless steel. Out of all submissions received 55 artworks were selected to be included in the exhibition.
Best of Show
Wangyoul Lee
Short Biography and Statement
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Wangyoul Lee is an installation artist based in Seoul. Trained in biotechnology and philosophy of science, he works where organic and technological forms of record meet. The blackboard has been his primary surface throughout his practice. His work received First Selection at the Arte Laguna Prize (2025) and selection at Colors of Humanity (2026). A tree records time in rings; a machine records it in circuits. Memory Ring brings these two forms of memory into a single body. The tree's growth rings preserve the passage of natural time, while electronic components and copper wires represent a technological form of memory — information accumulated, stored, and transmitted. In Memory Ring I only the bark remains wood; where the rings should be, there is a board, and the growth has been replaced rather than joined. In Memory Ring II the wood is whole, and the circuitry emerging from the center follows and interrupts the tree's rings, blurring the boundary between organic growth and technological evolution. The two works hold the same circle and reverse which memory owns it. Both works exist in colour as well. Reduced to grey, the wood and the copper lose their difference and only the structure remains, so the rings and the traces are read as a single drawing. The ground is a blackboard, the surface I have used as canvas throughout my practice. The work asks whether technology exists outside human and natural history, or whether it has already become another layer of our memory.
Painting Prize
Christine Oliver
Short Biography and Statement
Christine Oliver - Artist Biography I have been an exhibiting artist since 2000, participating in several juried art shows at NUMU Gallery in Los Gatos and the Triton Art Museum in Santa Clara as well as numerous Silicon Valley Open Studios. My formal art training began with a BFA in drawing, printmaking, and sculpture from the State University of New York at Binghamton and art courses at the University of Cincinnati’s acclaimed School of Design, Art and Architecture (DAA). I recently won First Prize in Drawing & Watercolor at the Pacific Art League’s 104th fundraising show in December 2025 for my watercolor, Avenge Geroge Floyd, and the Mayor’s Award at the Los Altos Rotary Show in August 2026 for my painting Victoria Station, 1934. I work in watercolor, acrylics and mixed media and I have taught classes at the Palo Alto Art Center, the Los Altos Community Center and the Mt. View/Los Altos and Sunnyvale/Cupertino Adult Education Programs as well as private watercolor classes in my studio in Sunnyvale. Christine Oliver Artist Statement If art inspires, enraptures, confuses, or even stops you in your tracks, it does not matter; the point is that it creates a feeling, an emotion, and it gets your attention. As an artist, I only need to know what I am feeling as I create my work and if it surprises, awes, or even tickles you a bit, then it is probably doing its job and could be considered good art by those feeling the emotion.
Sculpture Prize
Jason Shih
Short Biography and Statement
Jason Shih was born in 1972 in Taiwan. In 1991, he began to specialize in metal sculpture when he was a sophomore in the Fine Arts Dept. of Taipei National University of the Arts. In 2001, he graduated from School for American Crafts, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, and majored in Metal Sculpture. And then, he served as the metal sculptor Albert Paley's assistant, involved in crafts and public art work practices. Furthermore, he earned his Art Ph. D. from China Academy of Art, China (2015). Now, he lives in Taiwan, and consistently engages in the both areas of sculpture and public art. Jason Shih’s artistic vision is shaped by a diverse array of influences, from contemporary dance to avant-garde fashion. He cites German choreographer Pina Bausch and British designer Alexander McQueen as significant inspirations. Bausch’s explorations of time and space resonate with Shih’s interest in sculpture’s capacity to embody kinetic energy and spatial imagination. McQueen’s innovative approach to contemporary imagery and themes provides Shih with a broad canvas for creative expression. Shih’s work is also influenced by the aesthetic principles of Futurism and Constructivism, movements that emphasize dynamic energy and continuous motion. These influences are evident in his pursuit of capturing the beauty of movement and the elegant restraint of natural forces. Shih’s sculptures often depict moments of defying gravity, capturing the fleeting beauty of motion in a static form. As a professional sculptor, Jason likes to experience the taste of life with perceptual observation in the subtle moments, and also likes the ever-changing situation of game shapes in the poetic imaginary space. For Jason, art creation is to share various moods and stories in daily life.
Photography Prize
Shawna Hinkel
Short Biography and Statement
Shawna Hinkel is a Master Photographer and Certified Professional Photographer from Dallas, Texas. She has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Texas A&M University, and has been a professional photographer since 2004. In 2023, she became the second Master of WPE from the United States, and became a Grand Master Photographer in Fine Art from MPI in 2025. Her work has been accepted into PPA’s Imaging Excellence collection every year since 2016, and she received the Imaging Excellence Award in 2025. She received her AIM Master of Animal Imagery degree in 2026. She was the Dallas PPA Photographer of the Year in 2017 and 2018. She was also named as one of the Top 10 photographers in Texas in 2020. She received the ASP State Elite Award in 2020 and the Photographic Artistry Award in 2026. She has won a variety of other awards, and has been featured in multiple art gallery exhibitions. It has been said that “the eyes are the windows to the soul,” and I have found this to be true. Not only in people, but also in animals - most especially in the great apes. My series “Almost Human” explores the eyes and expressions of these magnificent creatures, looking for the souls in our most closely-related counterparts. Chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans are so much like us that if you spend a little time with them, you can almost tell what they are feeling. Some are young and playful, some are old and wise, and some are shy and do not want to be bothered. I want to show the heart of these animals so people can find a deeper understanding of them, and learn about the conservation efforts in place to help them. What a better world it would be for man and apes alike.
Winners