Duncan Pepe Long won the Adam Portraiture Award. He found out just before a class he had to teach.

The call came in on a Wellington number. Self-taught Auckland artist Duncan Pepe Long knew he should probably call back. He was asked to sit down, told he'd won Aotearoa's most prestigious portraiture award, and then had to go and stand in front of 25 students and pretend nothing had happened. His winning portrait is of Solomon Tamehana, a close friend of nearly 30 years, painted with a ring light, a side eye and a background of what Duncan describes as gay bears.