Picking BritArt's blooming talent

Art lovers are having to watch their step as they walk around an exhibition of up-and-coming artists this week. Monet's famous water lilies appear to have floated off the canvas and into the ICA in the Mall, where they have established themselves in the floorboards.

Flowers for Andre, by David Burrows, is one of the works by 10 artists shortlisted for the Beck's Futures 2 art prize. More than 200 artists were put forward for the competition by a secret list of nominators and will be judged by a panel including novelist Zadie Smith and artist Gary Hume. Those reaching the shortlist win a prize of £4,000 while the overall winner gets another £20,000.

The competition is designed to highlight the work of lesser known artists and point to future trends on the British scene. Arts sponsorship consultant Anthony Fawcett, who is also one of the judges, said: "It is more important than the Turner Prize in that it's about what is happening in British art right now, before people get well known."

Burrows's other works are less tranquil, consisting mainly of paint-splattered canvasses such as cartoon versions of the St Valentine's Day Massacre. He cites as his earliest influence the comic strips he read as a boy in his parents' copies of the Daily Mirror - before he realised there were other forms of art.

Semi-abstract drip work is also used by Clare Woods, who lives up to her name by creeping around forests at night taking pictures of dense undergrowth. The patterns are then reproduced with enamel paint on MDF, echoing the images of the Blair Witch Project.

A visitor who sees only the works of Burrows, Woods and DJ Simpson, who uses glass, wood and acrylic paint to make what look like large-scale doodles, could be forgiven for thinking that the ghost of abstract expressionism had been brought back to life in this exhibition.

However, Tim Stoner's glowing Ready Brek grown-ups, and monumental Blue-Peter-style sculptures of paper and sticky tape by Brian Griffiths show figurative art is still alive and kicking.

Shahin Afrassiabi's installations combining wallpaper, plywood, curtains, carpets and televisions seem to mock the current obsession with home makeover programmes, while John Russell and Fabienne Audeoud have put a new slant on collaboration by each starting at different sides of a canvas and meeting in the middle.

Simon Bill's oval-shaped paintings and collages incorporate a variety of materials including maize, corks, fake gems and even dental floss (unused).

Looked at one way they resemble microscopic organisms seen in close-up; from another angle they could be heraldic devices.

Photography is represented by Dan Holdsworth's desolate urban landscapes and Gemma Iles's equally haunting portraits of people gazing at something or someone outside the picture frame.

Beck's Futures 2 at the ICA in SW1 runs from this Friday to 20 May.