Some of the most prestigious international art competitions are for portraiture, and Bangkok now has its very own. River City Bangkok has announced the launch of the annual RBC Portrait Prize with a top prize of B500,000. These are for painted portraits, by the way, so as awesome as your photos are they won’t win you any baht here. 

There doesn’t seem to be any restrictions on what kind of portraits are accepted, but the organisers do note that they prefer the paintings to depict distinguished people in the worlds of art, literature, science, business, media, civil society or politics. Any artist who is a resident of Thailand during the year of competition is eligible. Each year, the competition will be judged by a panel of opinion leaders from across Thai society: business owners, collectors, entrepreneurs, entertainers and the like. The entries are judged “blind”, meaning the judges won’t know who made the work during their assessments. 

If you don’t nab the top prize, there are two additional prizes up for grabs. The Packing Room Prize (worth B200,000) will be awarded by the River City Bangkok staff who unpack and hang the works. There is also a People’s Choice prize (worth B100,000) chosen by folks who visit the exhibition. All the works will be up for sale, too, so artists still have the chance to earn scratch even if they don’t win. 

The submission deadline is Aug 15 via [email protected]. Finalists will be announced on Aug 20. The RCB Portrait and Packing Room Prize will be announced Sep 29. Exhibition opens to the public the next day on Sep 30. The People’s Choice winner will be announced on Dec 7, the last day of the exhibition. 

For more details, check out the main announcement page here.