Yong Wee Loon wins UOB Painting of the Year award
Local artist Yong Wee Loon, 63, won the 43rd UOB South-east Asian Painting of the Year (POY) award at a ceremony held at the National Gallery Singapore on Nov 13.
Mr Yong also won the award for Regional Painting of the Year for Singapore in the Established Artist category. This is designated for submissions from artists who have been signed to galleries, been part of exhibitions or received accolades for their art.
He is the first Singapore citizen to win the POY award in more than 10 years. German-born Singapore permanent resident Stefanie Hauger was the first artist in Singapore to win the award in 2013.
The POY award competition is open to submissions from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Sponsored by UOB, the competition recognises 16 winners in person across the five countries.
The top winners from the Established Artist category in each country compete for the South-east Asian POY award.
Mr Yong’s winning art piece, A Sip Through Time, is a diptych, comprising two canvas panels painted with acrylic paint. It depicts a traditional coffee shop frozen in time, featuring posters and traditional sweets, along with surveillance cameras and a QR code, merging past and present.
A Sip Through Time is meant to invoke nostalgia in the viewer over once-loved items lost to progress.
Said Mr Yong: “It’s a big surprise, I’m overwhelmed and speechless. I wasn’t intending to submit this for the competition, but I finished it right in time and thought, ‘Why not?’ – and that was it.”
Along with the four other UOB POY country winners, Mr Yong will compete for a two-month UOB-Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Singapore artist residency programme at Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris.
Ms Joanna Maneckji, 52, was the Singapore winner of the Most Promising Artist of the Year award in the Emerging Artist category for her paper collage on card paper titled That Blessed Mood.
Her work is made up of different paper materials, most prominently featuring a Financial Times article as the skin of a mother figure. Among the words visible are “I’m not afraid”, signifying the strength and resilience required of motherhood.
Ms Maneckji said: “I called it That Blessed Mood because I wish that all women can experience pregnancy as a blissful experience. There were times when my own journey with pregnancy was difficult, but this artwork has allowed me to experience it blissfully in a garden.”
During the ceremony, UOB announced the launch of the UOB Artist Alumni Network.
It aims to further elevate the profiles of UOB artists in South-east Asia and Greater China and facilitate greater connectivity and collaboration across the region.
It will enhance the bank’s support for artists in four areas: art exhibitions at marquee platforms, art commissions for display or auction, overseas artist residency programmes, and networking opportunities and engagements with peers and leaders within the art community.
The chief judges for the 2024 POY award were Thai artist and art educator Vichaya Mukdamanee, Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo, Malaysian artist Bibi Chew, Thai artist Amrit Chusuwan and Vietnamese artist Dang Xuan Hoa.
Dr Vichaya, the chief judge for Singapore entries, said: “One of the key reasons A Sip Through Time was chosen as the South-east Asian winner is that it connects all the communities.
“It is about life, the public and the private – a lifestyle you don’t see much of in modern cafes but still exists all across South-east Asia. It is the best because it is what would be most meaningful to society.”
A showcase of the winners’ works of art will be held at the UOB Discovery Space at National Gallery Singapore from Nov 16 to Jan 25, 2025. The paintings will also be available to view online at UOBandArt.com
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