Director of National Portrait Gallery says selection proves that contemporary portraiture remains an 'energetic and telling force'
A naked woman chained to a rock, a scarred man with an air of defiant jauntiness, a slightly melancholy philosophy student, and a woman ominously sharpening a meat cleaver have made the shortlist from a record entry for this year's £25,000 BP Portrait award.
Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, which organises the prize, said: "The diversity of styles in the shortlisted portraits, and the skill of the works selected from this record entry to the BP Portrait Award, show how contemporary portraiture remains an energetic and telling force."
For the fifth year the competition, originally intended for young artists from the UK, has been open to any age from any country, and this year 2,372 entries were submitted, 1,644 from the UK, up 196 on last year. Of these 55 have been chosen by judges for the exhibition which opens at the gallery in June.
In some years competitors have stretched the definition of "portrait" to breaking point, but the four shortlisted works are all traditionally painted portraits of recognisable individuals.
The most startling is one that would not have caused Victorian audiences to turn a hair, an 8ft-tall canvas of a naked model called Holly, handcuffed to a rock, a female allegory of Prometheus looking up patiently towards the eagle coming to gnaw at her innards. The painting is by Louis Smith, from Manchester, and if it looks stagey, that may be because he has also studied scene painting at the Royal Academy.
In contrast, Sertan Saltan's model, Mrs Cerna – the younger sister of a friend in New York where the Turkish-born artist is based – is fully clothed but far more menacing, sharpening a cleaver, rubber-gloved and ready.
"The contrast of knife, gloves and rollers brought both humour and horror to mind," he said. "The animated sharpening of the knives and thoughtful facial expressions were burned into my mind's eye. I wanted to capture on canvas that moment which allows the viewer to meet this extraordinary woman and experience the richness and complexity of her preparation for Thanksgiving dinner".
Just To Feel Normal, a head and shoulders study of a friend (who offered the title as explanation for his habitually slightly shaken state) is by Northern Ireland artist Ian Cumberland. "This is a painting of a friend whose story is like many others from my generation that have fallen victim to themselves and their preferred habits," he said.
Distracted, by Amsterdam-based Wim Heldens, is a portrait of Jeroen, a now 25-year-old philosophy student to whom Heldens has been a "father figure" and has drawn and painted since he was four years old. Heldens is a self-taught, professional artist.
The prize last year was awarded to a the haunting painting of a dead 100-year-old woman, made over three days as a devotional study by her artist daughter, Daphne Todd.
An additional young artist award of £5,000, for which Cumberland and Saltan are eligible, is also being offered. The winners will be announced on 14 June.
The judges include: the Guardian critic Jonathan Jones; Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery; artist Paul Emsley, who won the BP prize in 2007; and Rosie Broadley, associate contemporary curator at the NPG.