AwardPuzzle is a data visulization work to visualize 2276 oil painting works awarded in 6th through 12th China National Exhibition of Fine Arts. The project tries to paint a picture of 30-year Chinese oil painting history in multiple ways of dynamic interactions using the works from top-level artists of China. AwardPuzzle can be used as a tool by researchers and critics, and can also be enjoyed by common users as a piece of arts. We share our perspective so that every individual could explore and observe for his/her own interest, see how personal interests, economics and politics etc. can impact arts. China National Exhibition of Fine Arts is the most important arts competition in China, people could get promotions, get into tenure tracks or sell their works with higher prices if they got the awards. The Exhibition runs every 5 years, the 6th was in 1984 and the 12th was held in 2014.

Note: This project supports browsers have HTML5 ability including those from smartphones and other mobile devices. However, due to performance and resolution considerations, we use a different way to show the 2276 awarded oil paintings for mobile devices. It is recommended to play with and research on it from your desktop and/or laptop computers to get much better performance and user experiences. Although we tried very hard, it is tricky to translate the titles of paintings from Chinese to English, you may see something doesn't make sense but you get the point. An extra benefit for English-reading users, for the ARTIST pattern, if you input "hohoho" in the searching bar, you will see something fun.