Teen artists offer varied visions of Singapore as home in 13-19 Art Prize
ONE of the judges' favourite entries of an art prize awarded to teenagers living and studying in Singapore is a delicate, poignant papercut-on-canvas work that illustrates the plight of ageing Singaporeans who feel alienated from their families because of the physical and emotional changes they are going through.
The work, entered for the 13-19 Art Prize, is by 18-year-old Lucius Yeo Jun Jie, a student of St Joseph's Institution. He says: "Although I'm depicting one HDB space, every room is disconnected from the other by its different perspective and symbolic door sills that obstruct, exploring loneliness of elderly even with family.
"Rotary telephone dials are distorted into couches or dining tables to convey a lack of communication. Interactive spaces are empty. Collaged obituary pages and the urn conveys death, alluding to lost friends."
The judges awarded the work the top prize of Gold, along with six other works. The winning works are now being auctioned on www.trcl.sg/13-19-art-prize/auction.
Proceeds from the auction go towards The Business Times Budding Artists Fund, which enables thousands of children from under-privileged and troubled homes to take up art courses to boost their confidence, creativity and collaborative skills.
The inaugural 13-19 Art Prize drew 222 entries for its Canvas and Digital categories.
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Andrew Huang Luxiang, 17, picked up the Silver award for his mixed media-on-canvas work titled Focus, depicting a cluster of high-rise flats.
Huang, a student of School Of The Arts, says: "The work is inspired by the visual qualities of HDB flats in Singapore, where the closely stacked living spaces and crowded neighbourhoods furnish our landscape. Despite the economic practicality of HDB flats, their repetitive design can obstruct our psychological capacity by hindering our creativity and imagination... an ambiguous imagery that is difficult to focus on."
Executed in black-and-white, the work was painted during the pandemic and evokes a powerful sense of unease and claustrophobia.
Another work that scooped up the Silver prize is Cyber Apocalypse by 15-year-old Janelle Lee Jia Er. The student of Guangyang Secondary School drew inspiration from science fiction to imagine a dystopian future, where new forms of energy lead to rapid urban development, the destruction of forests and the rise of mutant creatures.
View the works and take part in the auction here from now till Feb 17.
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