Philipsz's competitors this year were: Angela de la Cruz, who reduces painting to
crumpled pieces of canvas and chopped - up stretchers; Dexter Dalwood, who splices together found images to depict celebrities» living quarters; and the Otolith Group, which examines the value of documentary by creating or reconfiguring footage.
Yet upon further inspection, it is evident that their purposes run parallel; each
piece — a stacked pyramid
of crumpled rice paper, a pile
of woven baskets, archival material and oiled
canvases — seems to be the embodiment or reflection
of what Zhu has maintained throughout his career, regardless if the media were everyday household items, objects
of suburban life, or what the critic Li Tuo has deemed «thick paintings».