Scheme for Giving Awards to Junior Artists in Contemporary Art Field

What is the Scheme for Giving Awards to Junior Artists in Contemporary Art Field?

Scheme for Giving Awards to Junior Artists in Contemporary Art Field is the younger half of the prize structure attached to Tamil Nadu's State Level Art Exhibition. The exhibition is conducted by the Oviya Nunkalaikkuzhu, the fine arts wing of the Department of Art and Culture, Government of Tamil Nadu, in the two streams the department works across: traditional art and contemporary art.

The Department of Art and Culture's Policy Note for 2025-26 sets out the mechanism. State Level Exhibitions are conducted with the excellent painting and sculpture works of talented artists chosen by a selection committee constituted by the Government. The best among the exhibited works are then given cash prizes and certificates of appreciation, in two age categories.

Fifty artists are recognised in all each year. For a painter or sculptor in the first years of a career, the junior category is the department's principal point of entry. It is the award that puts a young artist's work on a state platform and into the department's records.

Two more prizes were added in 2022-23. From the financial year 2022-23, prize money of Rs 10,000 is given to 10 best art teachers of painting and sculpture, and Rs 10,000 to 10 best authors of books on painting and sculpture. A young art teacher therefore has a second route into the same award cycle.

Who is eligible for the junior artists award, and who is not eligible?

You can enter the junior category if:

• You are below thirty years of age. That single line defines the category.
• You work in painting or sculpture. This is a fine arts scheme; performing artists are covered elsewhere.
• You are an artist from Tamil Nadu, since this is a state-level exhibition of the state's artists.
• You have an original work ready to submit and are willing to part with it for the duration of the exhibition.

There is no income condition, no community condition and no qualification requirement. An artist who has never attended a fine arts college competes on the same footing as a graduate of the Government College of Fine Arts at Chennai or Kumbakonam.

You cannot receive this award if:

• You are thirty years of age or above. You are not eligible for the junior category and should enter the senior category instead, where the prize is Rs 15,000 and 30 awards are given.
• You work in a performing art. A musician, dancer or drama artist is not eligible here and should look to the District Art Awards run by the District Art Societies: Kalai Ilamani at Rs 4,000 for those up to 18 years, Kalai Valarmani at Rs 6,000 for 19 to 35 years, and the higher age-band awards — or to the state Kalaimamani award.
• Your work is not selected by the committee for exhibition. Entry does not guarantee exhibition, and exhibition does not guarantee a prize.
• You submit after entries close for the year's exhibition.

It matters to be clear that this is a competition, not a welfare scheme. An artist in genuine financial hardship should approach the Tamil Nadu Eyal Isai Nataka Manram, which sanctions Rs 3,000 per month to aged indigent artistes, rather than depend on winning a prize.

How to apply for the junior artists award

1. Register as an artist with the Department of Art and Culture. The department runs registration for individual fine artists and for performing arts groups, and registration is the practical way of being told when entries open. The department has issued 86,050 artist identification cards, which also give priority to perform or exhibit in government programmes and entitle the holder to travel concession.
2. Watch for the call for entries for the State Level Art Exhibition in the traditional and contemporary art categories. Announcements appear on artandculture.tn.gov.in and through the Regional Cultural Centres and the government fine arts colleges.
3. Prepare an original work, a painting or a sculpture completed by you, and photograph it properly, because the first round of screening is often done on photographs.
4. Assemble the paperwork: age proof showing that you are below thirty, your biodata setting out training and exhibitions, Aadhaar, residence proof and a bank passbook copy in your own name.
5. Submit the entry to the Oviya Nunkalaikkuzhu at the Department of Art and Culture, or at the collection point named in the call for entries, before the closing date, and keep the acknowledgement.
6. Wait for the selection committee constituted by the Government to choose the works for the State Level Exhibition.
7. Attend the exhibition and the award function, at which the Rs 10,000 cash prize and the certificate of appreciation are given for the best works among those exhibited.

What documents are required?

What else can a young painter or sculptor get from the department?

The junior prize is the bottom rung of a ladder, and it is worth knowing the rest of it before deciding what to apply for:

• Financial assistance for one-man shows and group shows. A sum of Rs 25,000 is given to each of 10 artists for conducting one-man shows, and Rs 50,000 per group to 5 groups for group shows, to encourage talented upcoming artists in painting and sculpture. Rs 5 lakh is sanctioned every year, and in 2024-25 the full Rs 5 lakh was given to the artists concerned.
• Fine arts scholarships. Educational scholarships are given to outstanding final-year students of the Government Colleges of Fine Arts at Chennai and Kumbakonam.
• Best art teachers and best authors. Rs 10,000 each to 10 best art teachers and 10 best authors of books on painting and sculpture, from 2022-23.
• Kalaichemmal Awards. The senior honour for painters and sculptors. A citation plaque, a cash award of Rs 1,00,000 and a certificate, given to 6 eminent artists every year. In 2024-25 the awards were conferred by the Chief Minister on 6 March 2025; 36 eminent artists from traditional art forms and 67 from contemporary art forms have received the title so far.
• Artist identification card, which brings travel concession and priority in government cultural programmes.

A realistic sequence for a young artist is: register and get the identification card, enter the junior category at the State Level Art Exhibition, then apply for the Rs 25,000 one-man show grant once there is a body of work to exhibit.

Why entries fail

• Submitted after the closing date. The call for entries comes once a year, so register with the department and check announcements rather than relying on word of mouth.
• Wrong category. An artist who has turned thirty must enter the senior category. The age proof filed decides the category, so it must match the claim.
• Work not original. The exhibition looks for fresh work by the artist's own hand.
• Poorly photographed work. Where the first screening is on photographs, a badly lit image of a strong painting loses to a well-shot weaker one.
• Expecting a guaranteed payment. Twenty junior prizes are given each year in a state with thousands of practising young artists. The rest of the exhibited artists get the exposure but no cash.

Where to ask and where to complain

• State level: the Oviya Nunkalaikkuzhu, the fine arts wing of the Department of Art and Culture, which conducts the exhibition and administers the prizes.
• Department: the Department of Art and Culture, through the contact page at artandculture.tn.gov.in.
• Regional level: the Regional Cultural Centres at Chennai, Kancheepuram, Thanjavur, Madurai, Salem, Tirunelveli, Tiruchirappalli and Coimbatore.
• District level: the District Art Society at your district collectorate, headed by the District Collector.

No fee is charged for entering the State Level Art Exhibition, and no intermediary can secure a prize. Selection rests with the committee constituted by the Government.

How to check your application status

There is no online tracking portal or application number for this award, because an artist is not filing a form that moves through a workflow. The entry is a physical painting or sculpture handed over to the Oviya Nunkalaikkuzhu, and it passes through three stages: acceptance for screening, selection for the exhibition, and selection for a prize among the exhibited works. Checking status means finding out which of these three stages the work has reached.

1. Keep the acknowledgement given at submission. This is the only proof that the work was received, and it is the reference an artist should quote in every follow-up.
2. Ask at the point of submission first. If the work was handed in through a Regional Cultural Centre or a government fine arts college rather than directly at the Department of Art and Culture, that office is usually the fastest way to learn whether the work has been forwarded to the selection committee.
3. Watch for the exhibition announcement. Selection for the State Level Art Exhibition is the first visible checkpoint. An artist whose work has been chosen will normally be informed so the work (or the artist, for the award function) can be present; an artist who hears nothing by the time the exhibition opens should treat that as a sign the work was not selected for that year.
4. Contact the Department of Art and Culture directly for anything unclear. Use the contact page at artandculture.tn.gov.in/contact-us, or call through the same channel, quoting the acknowledgement and the year of the exhibition.
5. Prize announcements come after the exhibition, not before. Being selected for exhibition does not mean a prize has been decided; the junior, senior, best teacher and best author prizes are announced along with the award function, so an artist whose work is on display still needs to wait for that event to know the outcome.
6. For a group or one-man show grant applied for separately, follow up in the same way, through the Department of Art and Culture or the Regional Cultural Centre where the application was lodged, since that too is processed offline without a tracking number.

Because the process runs on an annual cycle with no published intermediate checklist, the realistic expectation is two or three points of contact a year: once after submission to confirm receipt, once around exhibition time to learn whether the work was selected, and once at the award function to learn the result.