It's something many artists aim for their entire career, but two Canberrans who haven't even graduated from school yet already have work hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.
Malakaii Lewis, 17, and Ewan So, 11, are two of the 12 finalists in this year's Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize. Selected from more than 190 entries, the finalists - who range from kindergarten to year 12 - submitted artworks that responded to the theme "Me and my place".
For Malakaii, the brief was met by their work, titled Home, which was originally done as an assignment for their art class at Lake Tuggeranong College.
The hyper-realistic work features the eyes of their family members. Malakaii took photos of their eyes and then combined them, before recreating the image with graphite pencil.
"The prompt [for the assignment] was home, so I chose my family because not only do we live in the same home, but they are my home," Malakaii says.
"It's unreal to see it here now, though. I've never seen one of my own artworks up in a gallery before."
The same could be said for Ewan, who went to visit his artwork with his family at the national institution on the weekend it opened.
The Harrison School student's work, titled The Medallist, Self portrait, was created using oil pastels and watercolours to mark the moment he won a medal in a tennis competition.
"When I didn't play tennis, my friends were really good at it, because they went to a tennis holiday camp. But I decided that I wanted to try playing," Ewan says.
"So I started doing lessons and I liked it. That's why I decided to draw myself playing tennis."
This is the second time the Little Darling Youth Portrait Prize has run. It is open to artists across the country.
Judged by the National Portrait Gallery's Sandra Bruce and Krysia Kitch, alongside author Maxine Beneba Clarke, the prize was not only focused on works featuring individuals - whether it be a self portrait or someone that the artist knew - but also connecting the sitter to a sense of place.
Artists answered this brief with works featuring topics including a beach scene with their friends and family, a portrait of a young girl and her cat, and an artwork of the artist curled up on their mum's bed with their dog.
"Here at the National Portrait Gallery, the idea of identity is as important as the genre of portraiture," Kitsch says.
"The whole thing is about identity and being Australian, and we want everyone who comes through the door to see some aspect of themselves mirrored back. So maybe it's a story they know, or it's someone from a place they know. There's just some way that they feel connected, but also get a deep dive into other lives.
"And kids are part of our community, part of who we are, and certainly our future. And so by encouraging people to think about identity, to think about who they are, who we are, as a nation, is a really important thing."
The Little Darlings Portrait Prize will be at the National Portrait Gallery until May 21.
