Since its launch in 2000, the AIB Prize for artists of promise has become Ireland's most important art competition. Making the shortlist ensures a great increase in public and critical attention; winning, as Caroline McCarthy, Amanda Coogan and Katie Holten know, brings both recognition and a €20,000 cheque with your name on it. For Margaret O'Brien, nominated by Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, the experience of being shortlisted is not new. In 2003 O'Brien's proposal for West Cork Arts Centre reached the final four. On that occasion Paul Doran won the prize; however, O'Brien undoubtedly benefited from the experience (plus her €1,500 prize) and West Cork went on to win with Diana Copperwhite in 2007. Although trained as a print-maker, O'Brien's practice is now multi-disciplinary, encompassing sculpture, installation, sound and video. Her recent exhibition, The Long Goodbye, held at Droichead in 2007, was an installation composed of 10,000 cups and saucers which were smashed and then painstakingly glued back together again before being stacked precariously to create a 16 x 6.5-foot rectangular enclosure and several free-standing walls. Suggesting the fragility of human relationships, The Long Goodbye, was a technically impressive and psychologically disorienting work which touched on many of the themes which are central to O'Brien's oeuvre including anxiety, claustrophobia and psychological breakdown (Fig 2). Her proposal for this year involves creating a permanent, site-specific bridge from broken crockery and experimenting with new materials including paper, wool and, most intriguingly, candyfloss.This is also a repeat performance for the Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, who have made the shortlist for the second year running. Jennifer Trouton did not win last year but the Millennium Court still produced an impressive exhibition and catalogue of her work. This year their nominee is Joy Gerrard, whose recent work focuses on the phenomenon of the crowd as an organism, both threatening and empowering. Exploring this theme through video, sculpture, photography and drawing, Gerrard creates urban images of swarming crowds, massing and dispersing within architectural landscapes (Fig 4). In these monochrome images human crowds resemble infesting bacteria or insects multiplying beyond control. The invincible power of nature is the subject of Gerrard's imposing storm drawings and is also a theme explored by her brother, John Gerrard, with whom she recently exhibited at the Temple Bar Galleries. While Gerrard's AIB proposal concentrates on expanding her studio work, she also has a growing reputation for public art and recently won an international competition to design an installation for the London School of Economics. Eoin McHugh is a Dublin-based artist whose name has been uttered with some excitement since the success of his NCAD degree show in 2005. The delicate pencil drawings of fantastical subjects that dominated that exhibition have since been embellished with colour, and recent work has expanded into the realm of sculpture and installation (Fig 3). In his proposal for Temple Bar Galleries, McHugh plans to show drawings and paintings alongside a site-specific installation which uses a two-way mirror to explore issues of observation. The youngest, and only male, artist shortlisted for a prize which has to date been dominated by women in their mid-thirties, McHugh's ability and originality has captured the imaginations of the AIB judges and will undoubtedly continue to win him fans. As clichéd as it may sound, any of the four nominees for this year's AIB award would be a worthy winner, and let's hope that each has the opportunity to realise their proposals in the near future. Yet, as always, one must be singled out, and on this occasion the winner is Jackie Nickerson. In many ways Nickerson was the obvious choice. A former fashion photographer who continues to photograph celebrities, Nickerson was nominated for the UK Beck's Futures Awards in 2003, and her association with the Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, has increased her international reputation. Profile aside, Nickerson's art is probably the most accessible of this year's nominees and it is undoubtedly her 'Faith' series– showcased in a gloriously glossy book recently published by SteidlMack– that caught the judges' attention. A fascinating portfolio of images taken inside Ireland's religious communities, this series is both an intimate portrait of individuals and a documentary record of a rapidly disappearing way of life (Fig 1). The focus on communities shared by 'Faith' and Nickerson's earlier series 'Farm', which depicted African farmers, is to be continued in her current body of work centring on the local community near her home in Louth. Exploring the cultural and psychological aspects of life in a small rural community, this series will culminate in an exhibition at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin. Hopefully, Nickerson's AIB cheque will help to produce another beautiful catalogue of her work so that we can all take home a little bit of the prize. Riann Coulter is an art historian specialising in modern and contemporary art.