Prudence Flint has been announced as the winner of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. (ABC TV)

Self-portrait scores $100,000 art prize

A relatively unknown artist from Melbourne has won Australia's richest art prize

Prudence Flint has been announced as the winner of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, collecting $100,000 prize money.

Ms Flint was chosen from 30 finalists for her work called A fine romance number nine.

Ms Flint says she is shocked by the win

"Because my painting isn't really a classic portrait at all and so I wasn't really expecting to, it's not the kind of painting that I would imagine the Archibald would accept or even the Doug Moran so that's why I'm really thrilled," she said.

She says historically women have been painted as objects in the past, so she has deliberately painted the abstract of herself in a modern context.

"I wanted the woman to look really kind of occupied and doing something very modern and important so because I think it's very much what women do these days is they work hard," Ms Flint said.

"It's what I feel is around me."

Ms Flint says she plans to buy a house, a laptop computer and build a studio with her prize money.