The National Gallery of Ireland has announced the winners of the 2025 AIB Portrait Prize and AIB Young Portrait Prize.
Daniel Nelis was named the winner of the AIB Portrait Prize for his oil-on-panel work Late Spring.
The Donegal-born artist receives a €15,000 prize and a €5,000 commission to create a new piece for the National Portrait Collection.
Nelis is a visual artist, curator, and art educator; his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts.
Daniel Nelis, on his work Late Spring, said, "This work is of my wife, Andrea, painted in the months before our marriage. Andrea has been a recurring presence in my work. The painting does not seek to sentimentalise our relationship, but to bear witness through an intimate and intrusive lens, with elements such as the fabrics and heather rendered with the same scrutiny as the figure. Such moments of quiet reflection, experienced in the vivid reality of the present, are of greatest interest in my work."
Highly commended awards of €1,500 each went to John Foley for Biddy Boy and Conor O'Leary for The Final Portrait.
The awards were revealed during a prize-giving ceremony at the Gallery on Tuesday, November 25.
The judging panel for the AIB Portrait Prize comprised artist Gareth Reid, Professor Emily Mark-FitzGerald of UCD, and Dr Barbara Dawson, Director of the Hugh Lane Gallery.
with his work My Own World of Fantasy
Earlier in the day, winners of the AIB Young Portrait Prize were announced. The overall winner was 11-year-old Guorui Sui for his piece My Own World of Fantasy.
He receives a wooden box of high-quality art materials and a €500 cash prize.
In his artist statement, Guorui Sui said, "This self-portrait captures me in my happy place — surrounded by my favourite toys, away from the real world where not everything goes your way. I'm 11, nearing those "teenage years" everyone talks about. I know the "grown-up" world is coming, with its complexities and worries. So I’m soaking up every last bit of being a kid. Maybe I’m a "late bloomer" or just refusing to leave the era of pure innocence. I’m happy to be its king for a little longer."
Category winners include:
Ages 6 and under: Rohan Agrawal (age 6) for Me and My Curls.
Ages 7–11: Michael Ryan (age 10) for In Deep Thought.
Ages 12–15: Jiayi Sun (age 15) for Guess How Much I Love You.
Ages 16–18: Jill Tritschler (age 18) for Minerva.
Each category winner receives a personalised box of art materials and €250.
Judges for the Young Portrait Prize were Cian O’Brien of COBA: Cian O’Brien Arts, artist Neil-Jack Alphonsus Hamilton, and artist Alice Rekab.
The AIB Portrait Prize exhibition, featuring 26 shortlisted works, and the AIB Young Portrait Prize exhibition, showcasing 20 portraits, are now open at the National Gallery of Ireland until March 15, 2026.
Both exhibitions will tour to the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny from April 4 to July 20, and the Waterford Gallery of Art from July 18 to October 11, 2026.
