Gavan McCullough shortlisted for Hennessy portrait prize

Gormanston artist Gavan McCullough has been shortlisted for the annual Hennessy Portrait Award 2016, run by National Gallery of Ireland in conjunction with Hennessy.

Entries were invited from artists nationwide and Irish artists working abroad. The show of entries opens at the National Gallery on 26th of November and runs through until 26th March next year. The overall winner stands to win €15,000 plus a commission for a portrait which will hang in the National Gallery.

McCullough's shortlisted portrait, entitled 'Imran' is of a Pakistani man who together with his family, has been seeking asylum in Ireland for the last five years. Imran immigrated from Pakistan in 2011 and sat for McCullough at various times throughout 2015 and 2016. During their time together Imran recounted anecdotes both bitter and sweet of his former life. He fled together with his family when his life was threatened for standing up for a Christian woman who was due to be hanged. He and his wife miss their families, the food, and the Pakistani summer with its attendant mango season.

“For about six weeks during June and July the mango orchards all the way from Sindh to Punjab, which is an area about the size of Ireland, flood the markets with all varieties of mango,' McCullough explains.

The portrait of Imran is one from a series by McCullough entitled ‘Unstated’, focussing mainly on asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq but also the wider conflicted region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The good news follows on his success of being shortlisted for the BP portrait prize in London last year, which attracted entries worldwide.