Toronto-born artist Joshua Choi has won the $10,000 Kingston Prize for his textured oil painting Emily.

Joshua Choi's portrait Emily was praised for the textured use of paint and for the artist's ability to capture emotion.
(Kingston Prize)

The prize for portraiture, granted every two years, followed a competition that drew more than 200 entries from artists across Canada.

Everyone from students to established artists participated in the competition, modelled on Australia's Archibald Prize, a celebrated prize for painting that has raised the stature of several Australian artists.

Choi, a young artist who trained at Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto and until recently was an instructor at Centennial College, Toronto, and the Mississauga Visual Arts Centre in Ontario, has moved west to continue his work.

He has exhibited at Toronto's Spin, Now and Aird galleries. In the statement accompanying his painting, Choi said he wanted it to "be more than a window of a three-dimensional illusion."

The jury hailed the creative use of texture around the face, where paint is placed heavily on the canvas, and said they could "feel the distress" in the subject.

The 30 top finalists in the competition had their work displayed at the Firehall Theatre in Ganonoque, Ont., before the winner was chosen this Sunday in Kingston, Ont.

Paul Robert Turner of Toronto earned the People's Choice Prize for Attach.
(Kingston Prize)

The People's Choice winner was Paul Robert Turner, whose oil painting Attach, captures two people at an awkward moment.

Most viewers thought it was exquisitely painted, said competition organizer Lorraine Pierce-Hull. Turner won $750.

Turner, of Toronto, graduated from OCAD in 1998 and studied art further in Kingston and Florence, Italy.

The runners-up for the jury prize, each of whom won $500, were Toronto artists Jennifer Walton and Miklos Legrady.

Walton, who studied at Concordia, has exhibited in Toronto, Oshawa, Ont., Regina, Victoria and St. John's and has had her work collected by several public institutions.

Legrady has exhibited in Germany and in North Bay, Ont., Toronto, Ottawa and Peterborough, Ont.

It is only the second time the Kingston Prize has been presented. The prize pot has recently been increased to $10,000 with the support of the Garfield Weston Foundation.