MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: SOVEREIGN EUROPEAN ART PRIZE

British artist Nicolas Ruston has been shortlisted for the 25,000 Sovereign European Art Prize for his recent silicone painting Brave New World.

Brave New World was inspired by an article published by the Independent newspaper, on the 4th of April 1996, reporting the race by Japanese and American companies to acquire patents to human DNA sequences for future development and marketing.

Linking this commodification of our common gene-pool to the changing representation of Nature in art, Ruston references the artificial manipulation of natural products and the normalisation of this process with the aid of the media and advertising. To date, the artist has produced less than 10 silicone paintings.

Ruston is an avid collector of consumer culture paraphernalia which, archived over many years as artefacts, provide the impetus for his creations. His use of idiosyncratic materials – MDF, supermarket shelves, household paints and silicone – and methods of execution – dripped, splashed, sliced, carved or, in the case of Brave New World, applied with a caulking gun – serve to subvert and contradict.

Here the image was sourced from an incidental photograph, scanned, enhanced, pixelated and rendered on board with silicone, a highly toxic material in its unstable form. This art-making process - image selection, material (ubiquitous in plastic surgery enhancement) and the manner of execution, requiring a laboratory environment – is integral to reading the content of his work.

The Sovereign European Art Prize was established in 2005 to give recognition to the region's most exciting established and emerging contemporary artists. This year it has received a record number of entries, with artists nominated by art experts from over 30 European countries. The judges are Sir Peter Blake (artist), Tim Marlow (White Cube), Philly Adams (Saatchi Gallery), Gavin Turk (artist), Robert Punkenkhofer (Art & Idea), Joseph Backstein (Moscow Biennale) and Nasser Azam (artist).

The general public are also invited to cast their votes online here.

The artist with the most votes will win the public vote prize of €1,000.

The winner of the €25,000 first prize will be selected during the exhibition of shortlisted works at the Barbican Centre, London from 9th - 20th June, 2010. All works, excluding the main prize winner, will be available to purchase at a gala auction dinner. All proceeds will be split 50:50 between the Foundation and the artists. This year The Sovereign Art Foundation will use the funds raised to support the Barbican Centre Trust.

Nicolas Ruston was born in Epping, England in 1975 and has been making art from an early age. A three-year apprenticeship with British sculptor John Warren accounts for the pushing of physical and dimensional boundaries. Ruston has worked in design management, as a commercial art director for film and television, and in advertising. A full time artist, he is represented by galleries in London, Berlin and Hong Kong. He lives and works in his studios in Cambridge and Norfolk.

The Sovereign Art Foundation is a charity registered in Hong Kong and the UK. It was established in 2003 and runs the annual Sovereign Asian and European Art Prizes.

The Barbican Centre is one of the world’s leading arts centres, founded and run by the City of London Corporation. It provides all the arts - music, theatre, dance, cinema, the visual arts and education - under one roof and one creative direction.

For more information visit the Soverign Art Foundation website here.