The competition aims to provide a platform to discover, develop and celebrate young talents in Visual Arts. Besides vouchers to be won, 50 finalists will be given an opportunity to participate in a free workshop conducted by SOTA’s Visual Arts Faculty members to help these young talents stretch their understanding and repertoire in art making. All finalists will have their works shared with a wider audience either at a public exhibition or an online platform, depending on circumstances.

You are eligible to apply as long as you are in Primary 5 in 2023 and will be in Primary 6 (or the equivalent of) in 2024. You must also be currently based in Singapore.

Yes, you may apply as long as you are in Primary 5 in 2023 and will be in Primary 6 (or the equivalent of) in 2024. You must also be currently based in Singapore.

Yes, you may apply as long as you are based in Singapore and are in Primary 5 in 2023 and will be in Primary 6 (or the equivalent of) in 2024. You will also be required to get your school’s teacher to submit your application on your behalf.

Please submit your artworks in 29.7 cm x 42.0 cm (A3 size paper). Please ensure that the work submitted is of exact dimension. You will be required to submit a digital image of the artwork for the online submission. A hard copy submission will be required for the 50 selected finalists for the Junior Academy workshop. Please DO NOT laminate or frame your work.

You may use any two-dimensional medium, such as watercolour, acrylic or oil paint, charcoal, graphite or coloured ink. No printmaking, relief or collage artworks will be allowed. We will not be able to accept works with surface thickness greater than 3 mm and paperweights of above 250gsm. Your work should not be framed.

You are to submit a digital or scanned copy of your artwork  to your Primary School teacher for the first round of selection via our application form online after registering for an account. We will contact the teachers of the Top 50 finalists and you will have to either mail in or drop off your physical work to us. Please DO NOT laminate or frame your work.

Similarly, the 50 finalists attending the Junior Academy workshop are not required to frame their works.

The submission due date is Friday, 26 January 2024.

Please get your school’s teacher to help with the facilitation of your submission. We will not accept submissions done independently unless the participant is homeschooled. For homeschooled students, please get your parent/guardian to help with the facilitation of your submission. Each participant will only be allowed one work. Each school will only be allowed to submit a maximum of 5 entries. Teachers are to help submit a digital/scanned copy of your artwork via our application form online (Click here to register an account and fill in the submission form).

No. The art competition will require you to submit your entry via your primary school’s teacher. You may only submit your entry independently (with the help of a parent/guardian) if you are homeschooled. If you are attending an international or private school in Singapore, you will also need to submit your entry via your school’s teacher.

Every school is only allowed a maximum of 5 entries. Each student is only allowed to submit one work. Additional entries from a school may result in disqualification of the whole school.

No. We will only be accepting entries from MOE and non-MOE Primary schools, International schools, and Independent schools based in Singapore. We will not accept entries from art enrichment centres or academies.

Unfortunately, we will not accept late entries. Please send in your entry early to avoid disappointment. We recommend that you send in your entry at least 5 working days before the due date so that we can help you along, should there be any submission issues.

The judges of this competition will be members from SOTA. We are looking for original pieces of works that display the voice of the artist, his/her creativity as well as the technical ability in the selected artistic medium.

Your work will be judged based on your creativity and technical ability. We would like to see original pieces of works that display the voice of the artist.

50 finalists will be selected and notified via email by the end of February 2024. The names of the finalists will also be announced on the competition webpage (https://www.sotalava.com/top-50-finalists). Thereafter, 10 overall winners will be selected from these finalists, and results will be released just before the exhibition in March 2024.

We regret that non-finalists will not be notified.

Your submitted artwork must feature elements that have been created by you and not copied from any existing artworks that can be found in person or online. Copying someone else’s artwork and modifying parts of it without giving credit to them is an act known as plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious offence and violates the competition rules as it amounts to stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own.

Yes. Please get your teachers or parents to drop the work off at SOTA in person or by courier service. More details will be provided to you and your teacher in an email if you are a top 50 finalist.

There will be 50 finalists. From the 50 finalists, we will select 10 overall winners.

All 50 finalists will have the chance to participate in the SOTA Junior Academy (JA) workshop, receive vouchers and an opportunity to showcase their work.

No, this is not a platform of selection or entry into SOTA. Admission to SOTA is only via the Talent Academy, an annual selection platform that includes group activities, online questionnaires, audition or portfolio presentations, and interviews. Find out more about Talent Academy here (https://www.sota.edu.sg/admissions). This competition is solely for encouraging art-making interest in Singapore and to nurture young talents through our Junior Academy workshop.

No, you are only allowed to submit ONE (1) application per participant, as per your birth certificate or passport number.

Yes, the competition requires primary school teachers to submit on behalf of their students. Please include individual student email and contact. Furthermore, each school is only allowed a maximum of 5 entries. For more information on how to submit, please refer to the step-by-step submission guide HERE.

You will need to prepare basic information such as your date of birth, nationality, current school, etc.

You will also need to prepare a clear, high-resolution image of your artwork with a short description of the artwork in Jpeg format of not more than 10MB.

The artist's statement should not exceed the 150 word count limit. Please check the submission criteria and specifications clearly in the application form (Click here to view the submission guide) before submitting.

Submissions with incorrect or mislabelled entries risk disqualification from the competition. SOTA reserves the rights to edit the artist statement.

To avoid any error/mistakes, please refer to the submission guide below:

(Click here to view submission guide)

However, a respondent can still make amendments to their submission until 26 Jan 2024 (which is on the closing date) by 12 noon. Incomplete submissions will be disqualified.

The SOTA Junior Academy programme for the 50 finalists is aimed at developing their talent and passion to excel in the field of Visual Arts. This programme is facilitated by SOTA’s Visual Arts Faculty, and specially designed to cater to pupils with the mindset and capability to flourish in artistically challenging learning situations. Pupils will be given the opportunity to deepen their artistic responses through an investigative process and collaborative efforts. By using different materials and methods, pupils will build upon their curiosity and sensitivity towards their surrounding environment, and at the same time foster exchange of creative ideas in teams.

The workshop aims to deepen participants’ skills in observation and drawing, as well as their skills in basic structural construction and spatial understanding.

Yes, the 50 finalists will be required to attend the JA workshop.

After the exhibition has ended, we will send the framed works and prizes by courier to your Primary School in a few weeks. This will allow for the individual schools to conduct their own prize giving ceremonies and celebrate your achievement.