Mr Andrew Sayers, Director, National Portrait Gallery yesterday announced the winner of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 as Scott Bycroft for the work titled Zareth.
VISA has generously sponsored the exhibition and will provide the winning prize money of $25 000.
The winning work is featured in an exhibition of forty-three portraits bythe finalists in the Prize which will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery until 2 May 2010. The exhibition will then tour nationally.
Scott Bycroft (born 1972) is a white High School art teacher at the Clontarf Aboriginal College in Perth, WA, and Zareth Long was one of his pupils. He has been experimenting with photography since 2007 and is self taught. On winning the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2010, Scott Bycroft said: I would like to sincerely thank the National Portrait Gallery for hosting the exhibition and promoting photography in Australia. I would like to thank also, the judges for their support and recognition of this image, and lastly, VISA, for their support and promotion of this event, which has no doubt raises its profile, and helped attract a healthy number of entrants. I regret that I cannot be there to accept the award in person.
Members of the judging panel were: Dr Christopher Chapman, Curator, National Portrait Gallery; Joanna Gilmour, Assistant Curator, National Portrait Gallery and invited guest judge Ms Kim Machan, Director, Multimedia Art Asia Pacific.
Dr Chapman commented:Bycroft’s work was selected for its immediacy and power, its distinctiveness as a portrait, and for its direct presence. The subject, Zareth Long, projects an uncompromising gaze, drawing us physically closer, to then explore the razor-sharp
photographic depiction. Every detail is so clear and finely realised, creating an unquestionably compelling portrait that is a strong and positive representation of youth,

After the National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition will tour to: Mornington Peninsula
Regional Gallery 12 May – 27 June 2010; Bathurst Regional Gallery 27 August – 10
October 2010; Wagga Regional Gallery 5 November 2010 – 16 January 2011; Mosman
Art Gallery 5 February – 20 March 2011