Twenty-five Negros Oriental students will compete with 50 students from Negros Occidental in three categories in the 5th VMC Art Competition, an on-the-spot art competition on Sept. 22 7 at Gallery Orange in Bacolod City.
The contest is sponsored by the Victorias Milling Company and the VMC Foundation.
Mate Espina, VMC communications consultant, said these 75 qualifiers were selected from 263 entries from all over Negros Island.
This is by far the biggest number of registrants since VMC launched its art contest in 2013 which has become a venue for young artists to be discovered and hone their skills through the annual competition and the summer art workshop.
Artist Charlie Co, who has been collaborating with VMC in the project, sat as the chair of the board of judges in the pre-selection stage along with other artists, Barry Cervantes, Emilio “Junjun” Montelibano, Rhoderick Tijing, and Guenivere Decena.
VMC Foundation’s Executive Director, Anne Tiongco said she was “elated” at the response from the students, “proof that indeed there are so many talents here in Negros Island.”
The annual search for young aspiring artists in Negros is in consonance with our thrust to promote the development of the youth in the field of visual arts and enhance the local art scene, Tiongco added.
The contest will have three categories — Elementary Category (Grades 1-6) which has 18 qualifiers, 12 from Negros Occidental and 6 from Oriental. The High School Category (Grades 7-12) that gained the biggest number of entries at 125, resulted to the qualification of 20 students from Occidental and 9 from Oriental while out of 43 college registrants, 18 will come from the Occidental side and 10 from Oriental for the Tertiary Category.
This year’s theme “Victory” seeks to inculcate the value of perseverance and hard work that will propel the young to success and empower them to share their ideas through creativity and the arts.
Elementary, High School and Tertiary champions will take home P20,000, P25,000 and P30,000 respectively.
Apart from cash prizes and computer packages for schools of winning artists, finalists in this competition will be given an opportunity to participate in a mentorship program through workshops with experts in the field of visual arts as well as have their careers launched through a company-sponsored exhibition for the tertiary level winners. (PR)
