London - Chris Ofili, notorious for incorporating lumps of elephant dung in his paintings, has won this year's £20,000 Turner Prize, it was announced last night from the Tate Gallery. Ofili (30), from Manchester, the front-runner of the four-strong shortlist, is the first painter to win the prize since Howard Hodgkin in 1985. His paintings layer colour, resin, glitter and icons of black life, sometimes disguised with stars or Afro haircuts, and his own cartoon-like characters.
Specially painted for the current Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Gallery was No Woman No Cry, a tribute to the dignity and suffering of the family of Stephen Lawrence. The Turner Prize is open to British artists under 50 for an outstanding exhibition during the previous 12 months. French fashion designer agnes b presented Ofili with his prize. He said: "Oh man. Thank God! Where's my cheque?" Even though he was 5-4 favourite, he never expected to win, Ofili insisted. "The cameras weren't focused on me when agnes b opened the envelope and then she said my name."