On August 1, 2025, the Whitelock Art Center in New York officially held a press conference to announce the winners of “The Light from the Other Shore – 2025 New York International Art Competition”. The event revealed the list of awarded artists and their respective honors to artists, art enthusiasts, and the general public who have been following this international competition. The exhibition and related media coverage are scheduled to run from August 1 to 30, 2025.

From a sociological perspective, “the other shore” is not an abstract realm, but rather an ideal state closely intertwined with our current societal condition. Amid ongoing global crises, cultural disjunctions, and the reconstruction of identity, people yearn for “the other shore”—a more inclusive and just world for all. This longing is explored, confronted, and reflected upon through art. The participating artists come from diverse cultural, linguistic, and historical backgrounds, yet their works share a profound concern for the fate of a shared human community.

The jury adopted a blind review scoring method, using an academic grading scale: A (90+), B (80–89), and C (70–79), to determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards respectively. Among all Gold Awards, the artist or category with the highest score was awarded the Grand Prize of the exhibition. The jury emphasized innovation in both concept and form, aligned with the competition’s curatorial theme “The Light from the Other Shore”. Artists were encouraged to engage in multi-media and multi-dimensional practices—including painting, installation, photography, video, visual arts, mixed media, and emerging forms such as digital generation and AI collaboration—to explore the contemporary imagination of “the other shore.” Rather than being confined to traditional aesthetic paradigms, the competition promoted a fluid, intersecting, and open artistic ecology.

The final awardees of the New York International Art Competition include artists from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ukraine, South Korea, Vietnam, and Israel.