Exhibitions, short courses, portrait prizes and healing mothers

A portrait of a mother healing her son has been revealed as the winner of the 2021 Zurich Portrait Prize. Me Ma Healing Me by Salvatore of Lucan won the artist a prize of €15,000 in addition to a commission worth €5,000 to produce a new work for the National Portrait Collection.

In the junior section, the Zurich Young Portrait Prize overall winner was Della Cowper-Gray, who won a cash prize of €500 and a box of high quality art materials for her work, My Father the Artist. In the youngest category, six-year-old Marianna Krolik won with her portrait of her best friend, Mia. The Zurich Portrait Prize exhibition, featuring the winners alongside 23 other shortlisted works is on display at the National Gallery of Ireland until April 3rd, 2022, and then at the Crawford Gallery in Cork.

Waterford exhibition

The winner, Salvatore of Lucan, is also part of the Artform exhibition at 44 The Quay in Waterford along with 170 other artists with more than 300 works including paintings, sculpture, mixed media, photography and print. Running daily until December 23rd, prices vary from €150 to €8,250 for Jean Curran's Kim at the Golden Gate Bridge. Now in its fourth year and located in the city's cultural quarter, the exhibition forms part of the Waterford Christmas Festival. In collaboration with GOMA – Gallery of Modern Art Waterford – and the Waterford business community, a series of prizes including solo show opportunities as well as monetary awards were given to artwork of merit in selected categories. The following artists were awarded: Ben Hennessy, Ciaran Bowen, Mary Butler, Zsolt Basti, Michael O'Leary, John Albert Duignan, Tony Gunning and Síle Walsh.

Courses

The centre also runs short art courses and painting holidays with a wide range of artists. Located in the coastal village of Dunmore East and running from two to five days, disciplines include creative drawing, print-making and sculpture in addition to learning about oils, acrylics, watercolours and mixed media. A three-day course (March 4th-6th, 2022) is run by Shevaun Doherty, the award-winning botanical artist who designed Irish postage stamps featuring bees in 2018, and whose work features in the Natural History Museum. It costs €350 and is limited to eight people. On March 12th-13th, 2022, artist James Horan will host a Modelling the Head in Clay tutorial. A graduate of the Crawford College of Art and Design, with a master's degree in aesthetics and the history of art, Horan has been a guest exhibitor and instructor at the stone sculpture symposium in Port Orchard in Washington and at the annual exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2017. He is represented by Sol Art in Dublin. Working with a live model, participants will learn about proportions while building on a wooden armature on the first day, and refining the work on day two. The course costs €300 to include all materials.