LONDON.- Channel 4 and The Saatchi Gallery announced this year's New Sensations exhibition for art students graduating from BA and MA courses in the UK in 2009. The 20 shortlisted students will be presenting their work in an exhibition opening in London on 9 October.

New Sensations was launched in 2007 by Channel 4 and The Saatchi Gallery to find the most imaginative and talented artists graduating in the UK and to support students leaving art college. In 2007 and 2008 shortlisted students have sold their work and been offered exhibitions as a result of the competition.

This year's judges are: artist Gavin Turk; Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery, London; critic Louisa Buck; and Alison Jacques, owner of Alison Jacques Gallery in London.

An exhibition of the 20 shortlisted graduates chosen by the judges will take place in London at the A Foundation at the Rochelle School in Shoreditch (9-18 October). Four finalists have been given a bursary to make a new work to present at the exhibition, and each of these 'New Sensations' will have a 3 Minute Wonder Channel 4 film made about them which will be aired in October. The winner of 2009 New Sensations will be announced in October.

The four finalists are: Oliver Beer Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford; Andreas Blank, Royal College of Art, London; Nick Goss Royal Academy Schools, London; and Regine Petersen Royal College of Art, London.

As a sponsor of New Sensations 2009, Moncler will invite one of the shortlisted artists to make a new work based on its duck mascot: a pop operation with an ultra-contemporary twist which involves entrusting a piece of itself to the inventive talents of an artist. Moncler is the expression of individuality and, like art, is a synthesis capable of expressing life itself. All proceeds from the sale of this work will go to a children’s charity.

Students entering the competition had to submit work from their degree shows and had to be graduating from a BA or MA course in 2009 and not be represented by a gallery.

The other 16 shortlisted graduates are: Amy Woodward Camberwell College of Art, London; Laura Culham University College Falmouth; Maurice Citron Byam Shaw School of Art, London; Thomas Yeomans, Slade, London; Jennifer Fergie, Glasgow School of Art; Camilla Holder, University of Brighton; Dong Yoon Kim, LCC, London; Nick Mobbs, Royal College of Art, London; Natasha Conway, NCAD, Dublin; Zack Thorne Wimbledon College of Art, London; Ryan Leigh Wimbledon College of Art, London; Rachel Adams Edinburgh College of Art; Anna-Maria Pfab, LCC, London; Mikhak Mirmahmoudi Newcastle University; Richard Cook, Edinburgh College of Art; Tim Ellis Royal Academy Schools, London.