The winner of this year’s 2020 BP Portrait Prize was announced through the National Portrait Gallery’s social channels.
Artist Jiab Prachakul has won the prestigious first prize in the BP Portrait Award 2020 for her work ‘Night Talk’ which depicts her close friends in a bar in Berlin. Prachakul wins £35,000 and a commission, at the National Portrait Gallery’s Trustees’ discretion, worth £7,000 (agreed between the National Portrait Gallery and the artist). The piece is on display in the BP Portrait Award 2020 exhibition, which has opened online on the National Portrait Gallery’s website, while the Gallery in London is temporarily closed due to the current Coronavirus pandemic.
Jiab Prachakul was born in Nakhon Phanom, in northeast Thailand. In 2006 Prachakul relocated to London where she realised that she wanted to be an artist after attending the David Hockney exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Entirely self-taught, her work has been seen in solo exhibitions in the UK, Germany and France. This is the first time she has been selected for the BP Portrait Award exhibition.
Meanwhile, the second prize of £12,000 went to Russian artist, Sergey Svetlakov for Portrait of Denis: Actor, Juggler and Fashion Model, while the third prize went to Michael Youds, a gallery attendant at the National Galleries of Scotland, for his portrait Labour of Love depicting Tommy Robertson, the owner of an independent music store in Edinburgh.
All 48 pieces of selected for the BP Portrait Award 2020 exhibition are on display in a virtual gallery space that replicates the rooms of the National Portrait Gallery, enabling online visitors to view the portraits collectively, read the labels and get insights from the artists, as well as exploring each individual work in more detail.
To view the exhibition visit: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/bp-portrait-award-2020/virtual-exhibition