Artists from across the country, professionals and first-timers, were asked to submit artworks for the competition organised by VRT’s Canvas television channel together with the French-language RTBF. About 8,000 artists applied and just under 200 were selected for the exhibition currently showing at Bozar in Brussels.

The top prize of €10,000 will be announced on 30 May, along with three other winners – a prize for a Dutch-speaking candidate, another for a French-speaking candidate and one voted on by the public.

The works selected for the exhibition include paintings, photographs and installations. You’d be hard put not to find something to your taste, although the abilities vary and the sheer number of diverse works is a little overwhelming.

Among the numerous photographs, I found myself drawn to a series of African communities captured in the work of Wim De Schamphelaere and a pair of pictures that show Eric De Ville’s “tower of Brussels”, made from the facades of houses.

Another wall is filled with blackand- white photographs; at the end is a work by Hilde Damman: on closer inspection, you realise it’s actually an oil on canvas in her trademark shades of grey, black and white.

Another intriguing work is “elderberry”, made from ceramic and iron by Kristien D’Hont; it made me think simultaneously of a branch laden with berries and a molecule.

Candidates submitted their works to one of nine contemporary art centres and museums in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. Each artist had 10 minutes to explain their work to the jury – a wonderful opportunity for the artists and also an exhausting one for the jury.

The exhibition also pays tribute to those who weren’t chosen by having the wall of the entrance filled with about 30 works that failed to get through. How were they chosen? By a telephone call-in. The first rejected artists to call in once the selections had been announced got a space on the wall for their work. After all, art is subjective.

If you can’t make it to the exhibition itself, you can view the works online or catch one of the television programmes – every Sunday on Canvas (rebroadcast on Mondays on Canvas+).

Until 6 June
Bozar
Ravensteinstraat 23
Brussels 
http://canvascollectie.canvas.be