PUCAD graduates bag top three positions in painting award

Islamabad :Graduates of the Punjab University College of Art and Design (PUCAD) bagged the first three positions while graduates of the National College of Arts (NCA) attained three merit prizes under the ‘Arjumand Painting Award 2019.’ Atif Rais Khan, Chairman of LMKR and LMKT and a leading art collector, presented awards to the winners at the closing ceremony of the Islamabad Art Festival here Saturday night.

The winners were Unab Sumble (1st prize of Rs200,000), Samra Cheema (2nd prize of Rs150,000), and Javaid Iqbal Mughal (3rd prize of Rs100,000). Merit awards of Rs50,000 each were received by Rahman Zada, Asghar Ali and Nadia Batool.

‘Arjumand Painting Award’ is a biennial first-ever art award instituted by any private gallery in Pakistan for artists aged 25-40 years. Created in 2015 by Gallery6, the award has generated immense interest among the younger breed of artists, which is reflected in the increasing number of participants in each award. In 2019, as many as 139 artists from all over Pakistan submitted their paintings, which is far more compared to previous years. Hence, it can be said that APA is becoming an iconic art award for promoting art young artists.

The purpose of the award is to emphasize the importance of classically recognized characteristics of quality painting among emerging artists and to fill the void characterizing the appreciation of outstanding emerging painters. The Gallery’s conviction is that the award will generate or maintain interest in the classical art form of painting which is dwindling with the increasing use of computers and other technologies.

This year’s judges were Rahat Masud, Mobina Zuberi, RM Naeem, Sana Arjumand and Irfan Gul Dahri. Judgement was done in three rounds. In the first round, 44 paintings were selected from 139 submissions. From these, each judge independently selected her/his six best paintings and gave them scores, which were tabulated and six top ranking paintings were shortlisted. In the final round, the judges again reviewed these six paintings and gave them scores after careful analysis. These scores were fed into the computer to generate the result. Interestingly, even the judges were not aware of the final result till announced.

Dr. Arjumand Faisel, founder of the award, described how the award has impacted the professional lives of artists who won previous awards. “We are delighted to know that winners of APA2015 and APA2017 have benefitted in different ways.”