Fine Arts (Diploma) student Muhammad Khairullah bin Rahim, 22, was named the first prize winner of The Singapore Land Authority Art Competition.
Khairullah’s piece entitled, Remember 1849? beat 445 student submissions to take the prize of S$3,000 cash. The theme of the competition was State Properties: Our Heritage, A New Life.
Entrants of the competition submitted pieces of art that portrayed their interpretation of the unique architecture and heritage of state properties, such as the National Museum of Singapore, Old School at Mount Sophia and the former Supreme Court.
Khairullah chose the National Museum of Singapore as his subject. In his research for this project, he discovered that in 1849, the National Museum of Singapore housed a vast collection of natural history and ethnological artefacts. He has always been fascinated with animals, and since young drawn pictures of them.
Remember 1849? depicts a lion’s head, very much a national symbol, against the museum façade to illustrate the building’s heritage.
Khairullah also found an extraordinary use for an ordinary household item. He reinvented the use of masking tape by choosing to paint and draw on it instead of a conventional canvas, giving new ‘life’ to the function of masking tape in art.
Competition judge Mr Khor Ean Ghee, President of Singapore Art Society said Khairullah’s use of this media was “bold and daring and exuded a sense of modernism”.
