*** Last week, I found myself bobbing my head to the imaginary sounds of electronic dubstep while surveying the works of Jia Aili's amazing solo show Seeker Of Hope at the Singapore Art Museum. The brushstrokes of 33-year-old Chinese artist's large-scale paintings evoke movement as if imbued or even embodying electricity itself. I suppose it's a kind of reaction that the SAM hopes to inspire because, if that wasn't enough of a hint, they've commissioned young established artists Jeremy Sharma and Yeo Shih Yun to create large-scale paintings showcasing their respective painting styles in the parallel exhibition Lyrical Abstraction. It's the museum's efforts to inspire and prove that, given resources and space, one can still dream big when it comes to painting. Because, apparently in this little red dot, it's dying. And painters are, apparently, a dying breed. Rise Of The Youth Of course, the opposite would seem to be true. My other reason for dropping by SAM was the exhibition of this year's UOB Painting Of The Year (POY) winners. Twelve paintings from Singapore, plus three more from neighbouring countries, were chosen from works submitted by over 400 artists, and hung on the museum's chapel walls like solid proof of a healthy painting scene. It was, after all, the UOB POY, a three-decade old contest that boasts among its alumni winners Cultural Medallion recipients and Young Artist Awardees such as the late Chua Ek Kay and Hong Sek Chern. But it has not been able to rest on its laurels as easily in recent years. A couple of years ago, debates swirled over back-to-back victories by conceptual photographs and a photorealist painting, which eventually saw its photography section scrapped. This year, however, the (not so old) age issue takes centrestage. For the second time in three years, a teenager, 17-year-old Esmond Loh Fah Rong, bagged the POY for his self-potrait Just Let Me Sleep. The buzz wasn't just about his win per se, but the fact that eight of the 12 prizes went to adolescents (including half of the eight prizes up for grabs in the open category). By all accounts, it was a youth invasion of UOB POY. From a certain perspective, it does play out like a feel-good tale. Who said painating was in its death throes when you've got the next generation coming out in full force and bagging some prizes while they’re at it? And even those who insist that painting is dead can look at it as the start of something very positive. Proponents of painting as the foundation of an art scene and market can, perhaps, look at this as a much-welcome sign that the Future is going back to basics. After all, as the argument goes, the more painters we have, the better it is for the scene and for the market. What better way to encourage them as early and as much as possible than through avenues like youth festivals and art contests? Where Are The Rest? But, at the risk of sounding ageist, I'm worried that what has just happened this year could possibly do more harm than good. While the distinction between its Open and Youth categories were previously clear-cut, this year's results seemed to have blurred. By opening up the, well, Open category to everyone, and with rather substantial proof that young ones do have a strong shot at top prizes, what would be the point of a Youth section? More importantly, are we subconsciously fast tracking the whole situation? Of course, only time will tell if any of the young winners turn out to have been Picassos and Van Goghs in the rough - and another previous teen winner, Alvin Ong, has become a full-time artist who’s also on this year’s list. So let me just put on record that I’m very open to eating my words should that time eventually come. In any case, it's not simply about who's on the list but, rather tellingly, who wasn't. As someone who has been covering the visual art scene for a number of years, I would like to think that I've a strong inkling as to the kinds of art and the artists who produce them. When I first saw the winners list, my initial reaction was wondering where were the artists? Were they really not good enough with the brush or did the youngsters simply own them big time? (Either way, that's a resounding "ouch".) But upon finally seeing the works at SAM, a more nagging thought was that these did not seem representative of what was actually happening on the ground. Is this year’s youth invasion at the expense of a more accurate reflection of the art scene? And if so, does it diminish not only its own prestige but the reputation of the very art form it champions? A Different Scene I'd still like to believe that the UOB POY contest and its thrust of showcasing the best paintings Singapore still means something - even if one doesn't hear as much enthusiasm about it nowadays. But for any contest to stay relevant, it's always paramount to adapt, grow and react to the times. And it’s a time where photography is exploding, and multimedia, installation and other non-painterly forms are deeply entrenched, even among the students of art schools. It's a time where, of the nine Young Arist Award recipients for visual arts in the past six years, only one is a painter. And at the recent Future Proof survey of millennial Singaporean artists, very few works in the painting medium were shown.  Even the paintings done by Sharma and Yeo, were made unconventionally. That said, it's also a time when galleries are doing a lot of shows and perhaps, more than ever before, have turned their sights on Singapore artists. In this context, perhaps the question shouldn't be whether painting is dead or alive. Perhaps the more pressing issue is where, in the larger scheme of things, does it fit in?