Bar raised for UOB painting award

A teenage upset at Singapore's richest and longest-running painting award may be a thing of the past.

The annual United Overseas Bank Painting Of The Year contest is back with new rules for its 32nd year.

Arts observers interviewed say the latest changes may raise the bar and level the field of competition so that artists of similar levels of experience can compete alongside each other.

Instead of the two previous categories of "youth" and "open", the competition is now divided into "emerging artist" and "established artist" categories.

The emerging category is open to all artists, regardless of age and experience. The title of Most Promising Artist Of The Year, which comes with a prize of US$3,000 (S$3,781), will be picked from this group of entrants.

In the established category, artists have to fulfil at least one of four criteria: be represented or have been represented by a gallery; have exhibited or sold a piece of art; been commissioned to produce an artwork; or have produced a personal catalogue of their work. The top prize, Painting Of The Year, worth US$25,000, will be selected by a panel of judges from submissions in this category.

Previously, the top honour was chosen from submissions in the open category, whose only barrier to entry was a minimum age of 13.

The tweak in rules follows last year's surprise win, when Esmond Loh, 17, beat other contestants, making it the third time in eight years that the title has gone to someone 18 or younger.

In 2005, artist Alvin Ong, then a 16-year-old student at National Junior College, became the youngest winner of the award and in 2010, 18-year-old Bai Tian Yuan of Raffles Institution snagged the top prize.

The youthful winners had prompted some to question if they deserve to win Singapore's richest painting award. The rules were last modified in 2011 to exclude photography and focus on painting.

On the latest rule change, Mr Mok Kim Chuan, 44, head of auction house Sotheby's modern and contemporary South-east Asian paintings department, who is a judge at this year's contest, says: "UOB is fine-tuning the competition and raising the standards of the contest."

He adds that the new categories "encourage the younger artists to participate, knowing there's a fair chance of them winning" in the emerging artist category while also spurring professional artists to take part in the contest "by raising the bar of the competition".

Painter Hong Sek Chern, 46, who won the top prize in 2007, says: "The label established artist is fairly broad and artists who command a market price higher than the award may not be enticed to take part."

She says the change will, however, likely rule out "junior college students who have one solid piece of work" walking away with the award and instead attract more entries from recent art school graduates who have exhibited works.

The changes were announced yesterday in a press release. The submission period for this year's contest is from Nov 8 to 10. The Painting Of The Year contest is also held in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The top winners from each of the countries will vie for the grand regional prize under the new title, South-east Asian Painting Of The Year, with a bigger prize money of US$10,000 compared to S$5,000 previously.

lijie@sph.com.sg

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