SHOWCASE

/ ARTIST / 2025

BKKIF Artist  
ARTIST: Shang-Ru Tsai
COUNTRY: Taiwan
EMAIL: thatisall66@gmail.com
CONTACT: https://shangrutsaiart.com/
https://www.instagram.com/shangrutsai.art/
Shang-Ru Tsai is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Taiwan.
He works in creative fields including book and music publication, branding, performance, movie posters, and exhibition identity.
His work often explores emotional scenes with layered textures, soft brushwork, and balanced color palettes.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO

"Acid Mothers Temple" is a psychedelic rock band known for their experimental approach to composition and live performances. Even their self-titled track can take on completely different forms depending on the lineup.

This performance was titled "Love." The key visual poster is inspired by their past album covers, rearranging and integrating the imagery in a way that reflects not only the band's musical style but also one aspect of "love"—chaotic, yet full of possibilities.

NCAF Art Bulletin No.74: Taiwan’s First Step onto the International Stage

I was invited by the National Culture and Arts Foundation to create illustrations for the issue.
This issue highlights how official funding promotes international exchanges in the arts. I was inspired by the idea of "hitching a ride," showing how artists, with support, can cross borders on their creative journeys.

NCAF Art Bulletin No.77: The Slug’s Delusion

I was invited by the National Culture and Arts Foundation to create illustrations for the issue.
This issue focuses on how artists respond to the idea of dwelling, considering both physical and emotional boundaries. In this moment, we are like shell-less slugs, searching for a place to belong within narrow spaces.

Katai Tayama: A Middle-aged Man’s Girlhood Dream

Katai Tayama was a pioneer of Japanese naturalist literature, known for his plain yet unflinching depictions of human desire. This piece, created as a cover for one of his novels, subtly conveys a man's longing and fantasies about love.

Miyamoto Yuriko: A Free Mind

Yuriko Miyamoto is one of Japan's most prominent female writers. Centered on the theme of women's consciousness, this book affirms a woman's right to make her own choices in love and marriage during a time when society remained deeply conservative. It argues that a new generation of women should embrace the courage to face failure in order to grow and shape their own paths.

The cover illustration uses the traditional white kimono worn at weddings to represent external expectations. The woman's face has been deliberately removed, while the long-petaled dianthus flower, or nadeshiko, symbolizes women shaped by traditional ideals of femininity. Within this delicate yet constraining image, a free-flying bird still appears, expressing the spirit of liberation.

Have a Nice Day: Intro

This issue of Blow Music features an interview centered on singer Waa Wei’s album Have a Nice Day, exploring the album’s production process, emotional shifts, and how everyday experiences and subtle feelings were composed into ten songs.

I built upon the original styling and extended it into illustration work for both the teaser and official release. These were set in outdoor and indoor scenes respectively, with a reversal in character scale to reflect the themes discussed in the article. Objects appearing in each setting subtly reference each other, suggesting a connection between the two images.

Have a Nice Day

This issue of Blow Music features an interview centered on singer Waa Wei’s album Have a Nice Day, exploring the album’s production process, emotional shifts, and how everyday experiences and subtle feelings were composed into ten songs.

I built upon the original styling and extended it into illustration work for both the teaser and official release. These were set in outdoor and indoor scenes respectively, with a reversal in character scale to reflect the themes discussed in the article. Objects appearing in each setting subtly reference each other, suggesting a connection between the two images.

Departures

The Japanese film Departures explores how the living come to say goodbye to the dead. Before becoming a mortician, the protagonist was a cellist. This illustration builds on that aspect of his past and connects to the final scene in which he interacts with his father.

In Our Time

In Our Time is one of the representative works of the Taiwanese New Cinema movement. The film is an anthology of four short stories directed by four filmmakers, each depicting everyday life from the perspective of ordinary people. This illustration features the main characters from each segment, along with key objects that hint at the events in their respective stories.

Modern Times

Modern Times is one of Charlie Chaplin’s most enduring works, using absurdity to satirize an industrialized society. Many scenes from the film have become iconic. I was inspired by the sequence in which he slides back and forth within the giant gears, and incorporated that sense of movement into this piece to retain a playful quality in the image.