Meet the Judging Panel

The AIB Portrait Prize 2025 Judging Panel

Gareth Reid: Born in Belfast in 1974, Gareth Reid now lives and works in Glasgow. In 2023, he was awarded Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Decade for his drawing of Dame Judi Dench. Previously, he won Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2017, painting Graham Norton for the National Gallery of Ireland. In 2019, his portrait of King Charles III was commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces for Hillsborough Castle. His paintings are held in prestigious collections, including the National Trust, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ralph Lauren, The Old Bailey, Dublin City Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Historic Royal Palaces, The Royal Collection, and the National Gallery of Ireland.

Professor Emily Mark-FitzGerald: Professor Emily Mark-FitzGerald (School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin) is one of the leading international scholars of Irish art and visual culture, widely published across 19th-21st century topics. Her most recent curated exhibition, Casimir Markievicz: A Polish Artist in Bohemian Dublin (1903-13) was on show at Dublin Castle in 2025.

Dr Barbara Dawson: Dr Barbara Dawson is Director of the Hugh Lane Gallery one of Ireland leading galleries of modern and contemporary art.  During her tenure, she 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. She has curated several exhibitions most recently Andy Warhol Three Times Out 2023 – 2024.  

The AIB Young Portrait Prize 2025 Judging Panel

(l-r) Cian O'Brien; Neil-Jack (Alphonsus) Hamilton; Alice Rekab.

Cian O’Brien: Cian O’Brien is the founder of COBA: Cian O’Brien Arts. Current projects include work with First Music Contact, Safe to Create, Rough Magic Theatre Company, thisispopbaby, Ireland’s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2026 and artists such as Fearghus Ó Conchúir, Meltybrains?, Eoghan Carrick & Lauren Jones and Jessie Thompson. Previously Artistic Director of Project Arts Centre (2011–2024), he is Chair of Dead Centre Theatre, and formerly served as Deputy Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts (2016–2022) and as Chair of Baboró International Arts Festival for Children (2021-2025). In 2023, he was appointed to the Comité Strategique of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Neil-Jack Alphonsus Hamilton: Neil-Jack Alphonsus Hamilton is an artist based in Donegal. His oil portraits are known for their psychological depth, exploring themes of identity, vulnerability, and the human condition through a narrative lens. Influenced by classical painting, cinema and psychological realism, his work blends traditional technique with contemporary storytelling. A graduate of Ulster University, he has exhibited with the Royal Hibernian Academy, Royal Ulster Academy, Royal Scottish Academy and more. He was a featured contestant on Portrait Artist of the Year in 2022 and 2024 and exhibited in the National Gallery of Ireland for the AIB Portrait Prize 2024.

Alice Rekab: Alice Rekab is an Irish artist, researcher and educator currently based in Dublin. Their practice is concerned with expressions and iterations of complex cultural and personal narratives. Rekab takes their own mixed-race Irish identity as a starting point from which to explore experiences of race, place and belonging. They investigate the idea of the body, the family and the nation as reflections of one another, and develop these ideas through material analysis and renditions of family, its bodies, and the spaces they move through and inhabit. Rekab’s recent projects include Bedrock: Liverpool Biennial 2025, Let Me Show You Who I Am Edinburgh Art Festival 2025, Clann Miotlantach/Mythlantics, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh (2024), touring across Ireland in 2025–26; Mehrfamilienhaus: A Home To More Than One Family, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2023); FAMILY LINES Project, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2022); Mountain Language, Galway Arts Centre (2022); Concealed in the half-light, Catalyst Arts Centre, Belfast (2021); and Migration Sings, commissioned by Temple Bar Gallery+Studios for Culture Night (2020). Their work is in the collections of Trinity College Dublin, The Cathal Ryan Trust, The Irish Museum of Modern Art and The Arts Council of Ireland.