2025 KCIS Art Honors: Winter AP Exhibit Global Selection
G12 student Tseng Yu-Lei earned 2025 KCIS Art Honors recently. Her work “Broken Court” was chosen for the global AP Art Exhibit. This piece stands out among 80,000 works for its emotional depth.
At the intersection of artistic inquiry and personal reflection, Tseng Yu-Lei, a Grade 12 student in the International Program at Kang Chiao International School, has distinguished herself on the global stage. Her AP 2D Art and Design work, Broken Court, was selected for the 2025 AP Art and Design Exhibit, standing out among more than 80,000 submissions worldwide and earning a place among just 51 featured works. The recognition positions her piece as a valuable reference for AP art educators, students, and families across the international community.
Yu-Lei has devoted nearly four years to formal artistic practice, working primarily in acrylic and oil painting. Influenced from an early age by her mother’s background in fashion design, she developed a keen sensitivity to visual language and gradually shaped a distinct artistic voice through persistent experimentation and reflection.
Broken Court draws inspiration from Yu-Lei’s experiences in the school volleyball team. Observing a senior player whose performance was defined by strength and expectation, she began to reflect on themes of control, role projection, and psychological pressure. Through distorted figures, charged expressions, and fragmented bodily imagery, the work translates internal tension into a visually compelling and emotionally resonant narrative.
The piece took nearly six months to complete and incorporates mixed media techniques. Kraft paper establishes a sense of aged texture, layered with tracing paper, charcoal, hot glue, and acrylic paint to build depth and complexity. For Yu-Lei, the process extended beyond technical exploration. It became an introspective journey in which emotion was examined, transformed, and ultimately articulated through art.
The AP Art and Design Exhibit is regarded as one of the most rigorous and representative showcases within global AP arts education, with an exceptionally high selection threshold. Yu-Lei’s inclusion reflects not only technical maturity but also conceptual clarity and emotional depth, affirming her place within an international context of emerging artistic voices.
Through Broken Court, Yu-Lei transforms lived experience into a nuanced visual language, using art as a means of self understanding and expression. This creative journey has strengthened her artistic foundation and clarified her academic direction as she prepares to pursue further studies aligned with her passions. Her work is now publicly available on the official exhibition platform, inviting educators, students, and audiences worldwide to engage with her perspective and creative vision.
