Laois teen shortlisted for Zurich Young Portrait Prize

A young Laois artist has been shortlisted for this year’s Zurich Young Portrait Prize at the National Gallery of Ireland.

Ayesha Siddique (aged 14) from Portlaoise has been shortlisted for her portrait Ayesha’s portrait.

The work was created using acrylic and pencil on canvas, and will be on display at the Gallery later this year.

From hundreds of entries, 24 artists made it through to the final stage of the Zurich Portrait Prize, while 20 young artists aged between five and eighteen years old have been shortlisted for the Zurich Young Portrait Prize.

 The winner of the Zurich Portrait Prize will receive a cash prize of €15,000 and will be commissioned to create a work for the national portrait collection, for which they will be awarded a further €5,000. Two additional awards of €1,500 will be given to highly commended works.

Judges for the Zurich Portrait Prize are: artist Eamonn Doyle; Róisín Kennedy, art critic and Lecturer/Assistant Professor in the School of Art History & Cultural Policy, UCD; and Seán Kissane, Curator at IMMA.

The Zurich Young Portrait Prize returns for its third year in 2021. Five winners (one from each age category and an overall winner) will be selected from a shortlist of hundreds of entries by children and young people aged up to 18 from across the island of Ireland.

Winners will receive a bespoke art box and a cash prize. This year’s Zurich Young Portrait Prize judges are: visual artist Aideen Barry; artist, art teacher and activist Joe Caslin; and Tadhg Crowley, Senior Curator: Education + Community at the Glucksman.

 Exhibitions of shortlisted works in both competitions run at the National Gallery of Ireland between 13 November 2021 and 3 April 2022.

The exhibition will travel to Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, where it will be displayed between 23 April and 17 July 2022.