A Limerick-born artist has won the €20,000 AIB Prize visual art competition for her paintings. Diana Copperwhite was awarded the prize yesterday at a reception in the RHA Gallagher Gallery in Dublin.
She was selected from a large field of candidates which was eventually narrowed to four short-listed artists.
The AIB prize money is to be used for the publication of a catalogue of Ms Copperwhite's work and to help with the production of new pieces to be exhibited next year in the West Cork Arts Centre, the gallery that sponsored her nomination.
Ms Copperwhite, who now lives and works in Dublin and Waterford, typically creates images associated with memory and dreamlike subjects.
Though she has experimented with other mediums, she said she feels most at home with a paintbrush in hand. "I am very much a painter. I enjoy the physicality of it, how something can be made from nothing."
This was the first time Ms Copperwhite had been nominated for the prize. She said she was honoured to be in the company of the award's previous winners.
"It is brilliant - a lot of really well-known people have been on the short list. This can really help to raise your profile."
The three runners-up, who each received a €1,500 prize, were Sean Lynch, nominated by the Galway Arts Centre, Alan Phelan, nominated by the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and Jennifer Trouton, nominated by the Millennium Arts Centre, Portadown.