Arts: Jelly babies: the taste of things to come?: Fresh Art pulls together the best work from degree shows around the country. Iain Gale examined the results, aided by the critical faculties of three experts

Can you smell it?' asks Glynn Williams, Professor of Sculpture at the RCA. Lisa Brown's female nude, cast in white chocolate and called To Desire (Not Devour) smells sickly sweet and nauseating. Wiliams is also put off by its unoriginality. 'What we want to see here is something experimental, exciting and raw.'

Could this be raw enough? I direct him to four photographic close-ups of copulating couples by Maxine Julia Smith from Manchester: From Behind. Koons without the smiles. 'Oh', he says, wearily, 'there's such a lot of this about; art dressed up pornography. So obvious.' Sex is a dominant theme. On a nearby wall hang three giant condoms, shaped as Doric columns. This is Enjoy by Manchester's David Fanning. 'There's an artform that's about self-promotion,' says Williams. 'Its success is measured in column inches.'

We are surrounded by the obvious and the derivative: shades of Cragg, Eileen Cooper, Gormley. We pass the Cheltenham stand. 'There's a lot of deja vu here,' says Williams. 'Davie, Rego, Pasmore. But you have to get over the idea of emulation without repetition.' He finds encouragement in Soraya Rodriguez's Book on the Liverpool stand.

There is a knowingness about many of the works on show. Typical is Mary Down's Painting with a Ball of Wool at Hertfordshire: a white canvas bisected vertically by a line of red wool. From a distance it might be a Barnett Newman. Williams finds it 'quite interesting. It has the appearance of formal art. It's a comment about the language of art. Very knowing.' Admitting that he's 'a foreigner when it comes to painting', Williams concentrates on the sculpture. One piece which he finds particularly engaging is Alexia de Fert's untitled sculpture on the Kent stand. The artist has filled a wooden armchair frame with individually dipped, plaster-covered tea-bags. The influence of last year's Turner Prize- winner is evident. 'Since Rachel Whiteread, a lot of white plaster eminences have appeared. But these students aren't emulating her. They're taking it further.' For a complete contrast we stop at Hew Locke's huge, brightly-coloured Ark. Williams admits an interest. Locke is one of his former students from the RCA. 'It's a shrine and a boat.' he says. 'A rites of passage piece. He's Guyanese with an English mother. It's about a journey between cultures.'

Opposite, Williams detects a trace of the influence of recent exhibitions in Gavin Wade's untitled sculpture from Central St Martin's. 'It's a sort of Lego Julian Opie.' he laughs. 'I don't like it but I respect what's happening in it.' While he's found a couple of pieces to admire, perhaps 'respect' best sums up Williams' reaction. 'There's plenty of experiment here,' he says. 'Some humour and some surprises. And there's not as much of the received as I was expecting. This is what you want; undergraduates should be pushing the edges.'

ROGER MALBERT, the head of touring exhibitions at the South Bank, is looking straight at the 'cutting edge'. He's found two giant-size kitchen knives - part of an untitled installation by Lottie Radford from Chelsea. 'You want to pick them up,' says Malbert with admiration. 'Do you suppose it's about the dangers of cooking?' A few steps away the culinary theme continues, with the overpowering smell of Lisa Brown's chocolate girl. Malbert just walks past it. Chocolate is passe. 'But you can't really expect originality here, can you? Students are making works partly as a form of study.' The Kent stand looks more promising. Malbert, like Williams, homes in on Alexia de Fert's tea-bag chair. 'I like this. It's almost like a crib and the association with Rachel Whiteread is remote enough.' Another chair, however, Peter Beeton's silk covered, barbed-wire-tied Practical Enclosure, at Liverpool, does not make the grade. 'Too much like Mona Hatoum's work.' Alongside, Book elicits approval. But again, aren't we looking at the inspiration of Whiteread? 'Yes. And Gormley. But there's enough originality.'

Malbert wants to look at paintings. Figuratively, he is most taken with Jane Andrew's Farnham piece Obtuse Intrusion - a grotesque carnival. 'This is good,' he says. 'I like the way the mask floats on the surface. It's traditional and well painted. It echoes Bacon in one place and others elsewhere. This girl really has a feeling for paint.' In complete contrast, he alights on a large, cool abstract from Wimbledon by Joe Short - Marquesa Series Three. 'That's classy. Very elegant. It's all about painting techniques.' But it's in the MA section of the show that Malbert finds what he's been looking for, an untitled painting by Eleni Papanicaraou. 'There's a lot of work in this. I like the control of colour, and it's quirky. There's a bit of de Kooning in there and some Duchamp. It's really very nice.'

Searching for an installation, we find a cabinet of curiosities by Samira Fafala from Bath, with objects displayed on velvet cushions and inside museum cases. 'This is good,' says Malbert. 'It's fetishistic. A big play on museum display.' Another form of display - that of the window-dresser - arouses his interest in John Hampton's untitled 'sculpture' from Winchester, in which the artist has simply placed several rows of brown paper carrier bags in a 'room'. This, it seems, has something of the originality for which we've been searching. 'That's what really matters,' says Malbert. 'It's going to be very tough for all these artists out there in the real, commercial world.'

THE ART dealer Rebecca Hossack is pleasantly surprised. 'This show's really impressive. I came here to judge the very first Fresh Art and it was quite awful. But this is incredible.' Although she has an eye for good commercial work, Hossack has come here, she tells me, to find something which appeals to her on a personal level. And it's got to be original. She is happy to dismiss Sam Brooks' Beast on the Liverpool stand. In a tank of water the artist has floated a figure made from life-jackets. 'The ubiquitous tank.' She smiles. Hossack wants something with an element of craftsmanship - 'I'm very keen on things being well made' - and stops in the Chelsea stand at Adam Kershaw's Remember, a giant pebble made from wood and steel. 'This is very lovely, beautifully finished.' But it's not quite right. Next door Soraya Rodriguez's Book proves another disappointment. 'If it was beautifully made - from stone - it would be absolutely wonderful. As it stands it just really annoys me.'

What about painting? At the Falmouth stand we pause to inspect A Man Lies Down, a tense, almost neo-Romantic set-piece by Toby Wiggins. 'Yes,' she says. 'This could work on its own merits very well. No wonder they're saying that British art's alive and kicking. What's happened? It's not so derivative any more.' Encouraged, we climb to the first floor but the MA room dampens her spirits. 'I don't think this is as good. There's something very brave and grand about the artists downstairs. To be surrounded by what's up here would lower your energy. Downstairs there's a real buzz.' Outside this room, though, Hossack finds the first piece that really excites her. It's Hew Locke's Ark. But she has reservations. 'The concept is magnificent. It's magical. But somehow the figures are just too crude for me, a bit heavy-handed.' Next door, however, she finds Chelsea student Geraldine Marks' Artefact, Series Number One, four photographs of Marks & Spencer jelly babies labelled with their ingredients. This is it. 'It's just beautiful.'

'Fresh Art' is at the Business Design Centre, London N1 to 31 July 071-359 3535)

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CLASS OF 1992?

Mariko Mori (Chelsea) is on a Whitney scholarship in New York.

Julie Neat (Central St Martin's) is working at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery which has shown her work in a mixed show.

Philippa Manners (Bath) is continuing to work in her own time and wants to move into design. 'It's very competitive out there.'

Tanya Radfill (Byam Shaw) is, as far as the college is aware, not working as an artist any longer.

Mary McAleer (Manchester) is studying for her MA in Belfast.

Lynda Marwood (Loughborough) is still painting and also teaches children with special educational needs in Sheffield.

Gavin O'Curry (Sheffield) works as an assistant to Sir Anthony Caro. He has a studio in London's East End and currently has work on view at the Atlantis Gallery.

Jenny Watts (Hertfordshire) is still working in Aylesbury and exhibiting, and has formed an artist's group.

(Photograph omitted)