ARTIST Graeme Wilcox sits proudly in front of his portrait of his friend and artistic collaborator "Ian" – one of 55 portraits in a new exhibition linked to the BP Portrait Award.

The Ayr painter's Ian (With Prop) is on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

Wilcox, a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, will see the work exhibited along with Peter Goodfellow's self-portrait All dressed up for Mam and Dad, pictured left. The English artist has become one of Scotland's best-known landscape painters since he moved to Aberdeenshire.

The award, now in its 33rd year and organised by the National Portrait Gallery in London, was judged by a panel including Nicola Kalinsky, chief curator of the Scottish gallery. The £25,000 top prize was won by American Aleah Chapin for her large-scale nude portrait Auntie, one of a series of portraits of female family friends.