Thai artist Jamilah Haji’s embroidery work wins UOB Southeast Asian Painting of the Year Award

SINGAPORE – An embroidery on fabric work by Thai artist Jamilah Haji has clinched the 2025 UOB Southeast Asian Painting of the Year (POY) Award, UOB announced at an awards ceremony held at the National Gallery Singapore on Nov 12.

She beat four other country winners from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam for the top regional prize.

Artist Ian Tee, 31, won the POY award for the Singapore competition, besting veterans like Justin Lee, 62, and

Boo Sze Yang, 60

, who were awarded the gold and silver awards respectively, and Junko Tsuji, who took home bronze.

Jamilah, 35, clinched the $13,000 regional prize and the 750,000 baht (S$30,000) country prize for her work Dua (Pray For A Blessing), which features women in prayer.

She was visibly stumped on stage when announced as the winner. She said later that the prize was “life-changing” as it was her first time submitting her work for the award and winning such a big prize.

Jamilah, whose home town is in Narathiwat in conflict-ridden southern Thailand, said she used discarded materials from her family’s hijab-sewing business as part of the intricate artwork.

She told The Straits Times in Malay and Thai through a translator: “I remember growing up in a poor family. My mother, who didn’t have formal education, always taught me and my siblings to be resourceful and resilient.”

Tee, whose painting Cloud Of Unknowing I was created using industrial tools to grind and cut on an aluminium composite metal, received a cash prize of $33,000.

Having experimented with the handheld angle grinder for seven years, he said that the win “feels very validating”.

The surface of the abstract work shifts according to the light and is meant to reflect the permanence of Chinese ink on paper, he added. “The feeling is the same as writing calligraphy – it’s just more physically demanding.”

On the prize money, Tee said: “I will use it to start a new project. Right now, I’m looking at the history of works that were created during World War II in Singapore and Malaya, thinking about the role of artists in that period.”

In the emerging artist category, 19-year-old Dayna Lu won the Most Promising Artist of the Year with her work Existence Is Prison, A Personal Account – an acrylic on canvas work that depicts realistic scenes of stressed and burnt-out youth confined in cubicles.

The life sciences student at National University of Singapore said: “I didn’t expect it. I feel like realism is very traditional and I felt that there are many other styles of art that are more expressive – but I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo thanked UOB in his speech for its multi-year, long-term commitment to the arts. 

Mr Neo, who received a token of appreciation from UOB – a painting by 2024 UOB POY regional award winner Yong Wee Loon – said: “UOB has done much to help cultivate a vibrant arts ecosystem in Singapore, South-east Asia and even farther afield.”

Notable winners of the annual UOB POY competition – launched in 1982 – include Singapore artists Goh Beng Kwan, Anthony Poon and Chua Ek Kay, who all went on to receive the Cultural Medallion.

In 2024, Yong became the second artist from Singapore to win the regional prize after German-born Singapore permanent resident Stefanie Hauger won the award in 2013.

The five country winners – who also include Indonesia’s Eddy Susanto, Malaysia’s Nik Mohd Shazmie Nik Shairoz and Vietnam’s Cao Van Thuc – will compete for a UOB-sponsored overseas art residency programme at Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris.

A showcase of the winners’ work will be held at National Gallery Singapore, UOB Discovery Space from Nov 13 to Jan 31, 2026, from 10am to 7pm daily. The winning artworks can also be viewed on

UOBandArt.com

.