Oscar yi Hou '21 Wins UOVO Prize

By
William Hutton
February 23, 2022

Alumnus of the Undergraduate Visual Arts Program Oscar yi Hou CC ‘21 has been named the recipient of the third annual UOVO prize. The honor includes an unrestricted cash prize of $25,000 and a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, to open later this year. The exhibition will mark yi Hou’s first solo exhibition at a museum. The award comes after a bumper year for the young artist, who had received his first solo exhibition at James Fuentes Gallery in 2021. 

In a statement, Eugenie Tsai, the Brooklyn Museum’s senior curator of contemporary art, said the exhibition will “introduce the breadth of his artistic practice [and] put his work in conversation with examples drawn from our newly installed collection of Asian art, a strategy utilized by past prize winners including Baseera Khan.”

The prize also includes a commission for a large-scale public art installation on the façade of the UOVO’s fine art storage building in Bushwick. 

Oscar yi Hou

“I feel so fortunate and grateful to have won the prize,” yi Hou commented. “It’s an awesome opportunity, and I’m very much looking forward to presenting a new body of work for the museum.”

Yi Hou’s portraits explore personhood, sexuality, and Chinese diaspora. They are characterized by their vivid use of color and the incorporation of graffiti elements and symbols.  

Born to Cantonese immigrants in Liverpool, England, Oscar yi Hou graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Visual Arts from Columbia University. Last year, his solo exhibition A sky-licker relation was shown at James Fuentes Gallery, New York. His work has also been included in group shows organized by Sprüth Magers, Kohn Gallery, and the Royal Academy in London, among others.