Bum Painter Makes Turner

The Turner Art Prize has again managed to be controversial - this time by picking a painter among the shortlisted finalists. Gillian Carnegie is the first artist who exclusively uses paint to be nominated for the £25,000 first prize in the last five years of the competition. However, Ms Carnegie's work is not entirely traditional - her entries include a series of paintings of a naked bottom. The judges say Ms Carnegie "interrogates" and celebrates the medium of painting using oils within the traditional genres of landscape, still life, the nude and portraiture. She has already been installed by bookmakers as the favourite for the art prize, which is awarded to a British artist under the age of 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation in the previous year. This year's shortlist, open to the public at the Tate Britain art gallery in London from October 18, includes Darren Almond, chosen for his sculptures of bus stops outside the Auschwitz Museum in Poland. Also on the list is Glasgow-born Jim Lambie, for his psychedelic floor pieces. The fourth entrant is environmentally friendly artist Simon Starling, from Epsom, Surrey, nominated for a piece in which he rode a moped across the desert in Andalucia. For the full story - click the title Irish Art