A brush with reunification

To her surprise, the picture generated a lot of reactions online, both criticism as well as support.

"Most importantly, people who saw it have started thinking how they should view cross-Strait relations," Chen said.

"Those with children are the ones who support me. Even if they don't know much about the mainland or the Communist Party of China, they still believe that Taiwan and the mainland should not go to war," she said.

She recalled that she had found support for her work from a friend whose husband is a soldier in Taiwan, while on social networking sites her painting received likes from friends who generally support the US.

The feedback she has received made her realize that in the face of adversity, ordinary people want peace, a fact that the media in Taiwan often ignores.

It has also emboldened her to post her creations and thoughts on social networking sites.

Chen, who recently got admission to do a master's degree in art from Jinan University in Guangdong province, plans to make a larger drawing on the topic in the future.

She was recently filming a documentary on political victims of Taiwan's "white terror", a four-decade crackdown on political dissent imposed by island authorities between 1947 and 1987.