Waterford artists get Portrait Prize nod
Niamh Swanton's 'God, I Hope it All Goes Away' has been shortlisted.
Two Waterford artists have been shortlisted for the AIB Portrait Prize 2025.
Niamh Swanton and John Foley are the Déise finalists in the prestigious annual competition.
Dunmore East-based artist Niamh is nominated for her photo 'God, I Hope it All Goes Away', a surrealist portrait intermingling childhood and religion.
Waterford City's John Foley received a nomination for his endearing portrait 'Biddy Boy', an image of a boy holding an accordion.
'God, I Hope it All Goes Away' depicts a child sitting on a bed, her face turned away from the mirror, and from the viewer. Behind her lays an outstretched hand clasping a rosary. Under the mirror there are toys, fruit, flowers and snails, and on the walls there are stickers of rainbows and posters of cats, just like a child's bedroom.
The ethereal work is quietly haunting, from it's yearning of a title to the juxtaposition of the adult's arm clinging to the rosary, to the small girl sitting under a portrait of Jesus. There's no easy 'why' or explanation, and perhaps that's the point. Thoughts, memories and emotions land the way they do without any reason.
'Biddy Boy' also depicts a child, only this time he is staring straight at the viewer, with more than a hint of suspicion and foreboding on his face. Looking at his shirt, he appears to be wearing a St Brigid's Cross, in honour of Imbolc; the coming of spring. Behind him stand a group of people in similar clothes in a flurry of activity, in contrast to the stillness of the boy.
The Waterford pair are competing with 24 other artists, working across an array of multimedia.
The winner of the 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. An exhibition featuring the shortlist of portraits chosen by the judging panel will go on display in the Gallery from November 8, 2025, until March 15, 2026. The prize-giving ceremony will place on Tuesday, November 25, 2025.
The judges for this year's awards are Gareth Reid, Professor Emily Mark-Fitzgerald and Director of Hugh Lane Gallery Dr Barbara Dawson.
Dr Dawson has developed the Hugh Lane Gallery into a progressive public cultural institution, which, through its dynamic programmes and projects, provides an in-depth engagement and participation with the visual arts.
Belfast-born Reid won the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Decade for his drawing of Dame Judi Dench. Professor Mark Fitzgerald works at the School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin, and is one of the leading international scholars of Irish art and visual culture, widely published across 19th-21st century topics.
