The China Art Prize is the first and richest laurel for top young contemporary Chinese artists from home and abroad. An exhibit by finalists, all born after 1975, is underway at the Art Scene Warehouse, writes Michelle Zhang.What is the future of Chinese contemporary art? Checkout the Art Scene Warehouse and you will probably get an idea.About 100 works by 25 finalists of this year's Chinese Art Prize (CAP) are on display, chosen from among more than 1,300 Chinese artists from throughout China and abroad. All were born after 1975.Art Scene Warehouse, a leading gallery specializing in Chinese contemporary art, launched the competition three years ago to encourage and promote emerging Chinese painters. As the first and the only art competition of its kind to focus on promising young artists in the country, the competition has grown steadily."The extremely broad range of styles displayed by the participants of this year's competition bears witness to the extraordinary artistic potential of Chinese art today," says Gerard Goodrow, president of the jury. Goodrow is director of Art Cologne, Germany's leading art fair. "Judging of the CAP is very fair and unbiased. We (the international judges) are even unable to tell if the artists are men or women."An award ceremony was held last Sunday at the gallery in a renovated warehouse building by Suzhou Creek. The gold prize went to Hunan native Mao Yanyang, whose oil paintings "express senses of politics" and "don't really look like Chinese artists' works," said Goodrow.All three paintings by the 27-year-old feature microphones as a common object. In one painting, a chimpanzee with a cigarette in its hand is shouting into the microphones as if he were delivering a speech. The painting "Boom!" features a mushroom cloud and "Port" portrays a soldier running towards a gun and the microphones.As usual, the top 25 artists' works will be exhibited in Shanghai and Beijing before a selected collection tours the United States and other countries.Art Scene China director Elisabeth de Brabant says: "It is an extremely exciting period in Chinese history, everyone is looking towards China. The artists that we are discovering are the artists of the future in the country of the future - China."CAP offers the richest art prize for emerging Chinese artists: The top prize is 66,000 yuan (US$8,930). It is sponsored by Chinese-American celebrity Yue-Sai Kan."I was at a most vulnerable position when Elisabeth asked if I would sponsor CAP," Kan recalls. "My father, who was an outstanding Lingnan School painter, had just passed away two weeks before. I took the invitation as a sign that I should do something to remember him by."The star anchorwoman grew up infused with sensitivity to colors and all things beautiful. Gorgeous paintings and works of art fill her Shanghai home - the living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen and even the bathroom."Many Chinese people consider paintings and artworks things that one can only find at museums or galleries," she says. "To me, they are part of my everyday life. Paintings should be placed in everyone's houses."