A PHD student from the University of Dundee has won the prestigious Scottish Portrait Award for Fine Art for an intimate painting imagining a conversation between the artist and his late father.

Li Huang won the £5000 first prize in the competition, which celebrates excellence in contemporary portraiture in Scotland. Li, 49, is in the first year of his PhD research at the University’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design.

He has been selected for the Scottish Portrait Awards three years in a row. Last year, his painting of his mother, entitled Kinship, won third prize. His 2020 entry, Between This World And The World Beyond, is a double self-portrait representing a conversation between Li and his father and the competition judges awarded him first prize. They noted the quality of the painting, its depth of emotion and the hints of an imagined language in the background.