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The Arjumand Painting Award 2019 was bagged by graduates of Punjab University, College of Art and Design (PUCAD), while the three merit prizes were secured by graduates of the National College of Arts (NCA).
Leading art collector of Pakistan Atif Rais Khan presented the awards to the winners.
The winners were Unab Sumble, who secured an Rs200,000 cash reward for getting the first prize. Samra Cheema was the runner up and won an Rs150,000 cash prize. Javaid Iqbal Mughal was third and won Rs100,000.
Merit awards (Rs50,000 each) were presented to by Rahman Zada, Asghar Ali and Nadia Batool.
The AP is a biennial award, and the first-ever art award by any private gallery of Pakistan at the national level for young artists between 25 to 40-years-of-age. The award had been instituted in 2015 by Gallery 6 in Islamabad.
This year, as many as 139 artists from across Pakistan had submitted their artwork for the award, which was far more compared to previous years. The key purpose of the award is to emphasise the importance of classically recognised characteristics of quality painting among new, emerging and recently established artists and to fill a void for the appreciation and recognition of outstanding emerging painters.
The gallery's conviction is that the Award will generate or maintain interest in the classical art form of painting, as it is dwindling with the increasing use of computers and other technologies in art.” This year the judges were five well-known artists including Rahat Masud, Mobina Zuberi, RM Naeem, Sana Arjumand and Irfan Gul Dahri.
The submitted works were adjudged in three rounds. In the first round, 44 paintings were shortlisted from the 139 which had been submitted. From these, each judge independently selected their six best paintings and scored them.
The scores were tabulated and six top-ranking paintings were shortlisted. In the final round, the judges again reviewed these six paintings and gave them scores again after very careful analysis. These scores were fed in the computer and the result was generated. Interestingly, even the judges were not aware of the final result until it was announced.
According to the judges, the quality of paintings is high, which made the selection a difficult task. They praised that the gallery management made efforts to keep the judgment process very objective, systematic, transparent and unbiased. Each judge scored paintings separately and was not even allowed to speak to each other throughout the process. This very unique approach even deprives the organizers to influence the result.
Founder of the award, Dr Arjumand Faisel described the impact the award has made on the professional lives of the artists who won the previous awards.
He stated that we are delighted to know that winners of APA2015 and APA2017 have been benefited in different ways.
For them, it was not just winning cash prize and shield, but with it came nationwide popularity and invitations from different galleries for exhibitions and residencies. This has not only improved their confidence in their art and themselves but has also served as an inspiration for attaining heights in the genre of painting.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 2nd, 2019.
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