Following on from the outstanding success of the Zurich Portrait Prize at the National Gallery of Ireland, a new nationwide portrait competition was launched to encourage children to showcase their artistic abilities.

The Zurich Young Portrait Prize aims to foster and support creativity, originality and self-expression in children and young people while providing a new platform to showcase the exciting subject of portraiture.

This year’s exhibition features shortlisted work by Katie Cashin (Clare), Zara Craig (Antrim), Páidí Daly (Meath), Cassandra Dennehy (Dublin), PJ Doherty (Donegal), Sean Fitzpatrick (Wexford), Haochen Gao (Dublin), Viktoria Kroejeva (Clare), James Cowley Lane (Meath), Jiayi Lu (Dublin), Ross McHale (Kildare), Red Redican (Kildare), Cathal Ryan (Clare), Róisín Ryan (Cork), Meilin Ava Song (Dublin), Aoife Sweeney (Clare), Pierre Gaultier Swords (Cavan), Freya Wilkinson (Meath), Grace Yu (Dublin), and Yujin Zhu (Dublin).

This year’s winner is Meilin Ava Song, for her portrait New Beginning.