The young artist María José Gallardo Soler has been awarded the 24,000-euro first prize in the Focus-Abengoa Painting Competition 2005, with her painting entitled N.E.N.E. He seguido el movimiento de tus labios (N.E.N.E. I’ve followed the movement of your lips).

Maria José Gallardo Soler (1978, Villafranca de los Barros, Badajoz), is a Fine Arts graduate from the University of Seville, specialized in Design and Engraving. Throughout her short career, which commenced in 1999, she has participated in both individual and collective exhibitions in Spain.

Two 6,000-euro runner-up prizes were also awarded. The first went to the Basque artist, Kepa Garraza Álvarez (1978, Laukariz, Biscay), for her painting entitled Estados alterados 14 (Upset States 14) “for its capacity to describe an extremely cold world and the transmission of new urban typologies”. The second runner-up prize went to the German artist Klaus Ohnsmann, Manheim (1962, Germany), for his work entitles Tiempo de Duda (Time of Doubt) , “for its magical vision within its apparent realism”.

The panel of specialized judges for the Focus-Abengoa Painting Prize 2005 formed by Juan Carrete Parrondo, Modest Cuixart i Tápies, Juan Fernández Lacomba, Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Manuel Sánchez Arcenegui and chaired by Anabel Morillo Leon, director general of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, examined a total of 284 works by artists from Spain, the European Union and the Americas.

Following long deliberation, the Panel of Judges selected the twenty-nine finalists and from among which it chose that entitled N.E.N.E. He seguido el movimiento de tus labios (N.E.N.E. I’ve followed the movement of your lips) , by María José Gallardo Soler, “for its imaginative richness, personal universe and refined technique and for its capacity to create a world of interrelationships”.

The Focus-Abengoa Foundation, whose longstanding painting prize has achieved unanimous prestige and recognition in the art world, will exhibit the twenty-nine works chosen as finalists for this edition in an exhibition that will be inaugurated on September 12, and which will remain open to the public until October 16 in the Foundation’s Hospital de los Venerables headquarter, in Seville.

The Focus-Abengoa Foundation was established in 1982 as a consequence of the cultural activity initiated in 1972 by Abengoa with the publishing of the works "Sevillian Topics" and "Iconography of Seville". During this same period a collection of documents, books and prints on Seville, or by Sevillian authors, was being put together. This initial cultural activity brought Abengoa's senior management to see the importance of the company being seen outside its essential technological functions through an activity that would be of benefit to society as a whole, which led to the founding of the Fundación Fondo de Cultura de Sevilla.

The Foundation's activities have been ever-increasing, while complying unwaveringly with its foundational objective of promoting culture in its different artistic and scientific manifestations. The major protagonists in the existence of Focus-Abengoa have been education, painting, restoration and music, closely followed by seminars, the written word and prints.