LONDON, ENGLAND.- Tate Britain presents today “Turner Prize 2003”. 2003 marks the 20th year of the Turner Prize, widely considered to be one of the most important and prestigious awards for the visual arts in Europe. The Turner Prize was established by the Tate Patrons of New Art to promote public discussion of new developments in contemporary British art. The £20,000 prize will be presented during a live broadcast by Channel 4 on Sunday 7 December.

Dinos Chapman was born in London in 1962 and Jake Chapman was born in Cheltenham in 1966. They both graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1990 and began working together shortly afterwards. The Chapmans weave a vast range of associations into their work, using material from all areas of the cultural landscape including philosophical theory, art history and consumer culture. They engage with inflammatory subjects and use subversive strategies to produce works that defiantly refute straightforward interpretation.

Willie Doherty was born in 1959 in Derry, Northern Ireland. His art relates directly to the complexities of living in a divided society. Derry (also known as Londonderry) is a city synonymous with the Northern Irish conflict. The religious and political divisions there are epitomised by the contested nature of the city’s name. Much of Doherty’s work refers to an undercurrent of fear, oppression and uncertainty that for many has been a daily experience of life in Northern Ireland over the last three decades, whilst revealing a deep mistrust of the journalistic medium. Through photography and video, he adopts documentary codes and the strategies of film noir cinema, to undermine the boundaries between perception and memory, truth and fiction, creating highly poignant open-ended narratives.

Anya Gallaccio was born in Paisley in 1963. She studied at Kingston Polytechnic and Goldsmiths College, University of London. Gallaccio is one of the leading British sculptors of her generation, yet the ephemeral nature of her chosen materials, such as flowers, fruit, ice and grass, means that few of her works remain permanent. Most of them simply decay, rather than being acquired by private or public collections. The unpredictable time-based qualities of her installations relate to the history of performance as much as the tradition of sculpture. This fascination with cycles of transformation and degeneration, properties inherent in the organic materials she uses, lies at the heart of Gallaccio’s practice.
 
Grayson Perry was born in Chelmsford in 1960. He studied at Braintree College of Further Education and at Portsmouth Polytechnic. In the early 1980s Perry was a member of the Neo-Naturist group, and took part in performance and film works. He has continued to make work in a variety of media which now includes embroidery and photography. Yet Perry is best known for his ceramic works: classically shaped vases covered with figures, patterns and text. The revealing and often dark subject matter depicted on these pots is at first disguised by their colourful, decorative appearance. His chosen topics include autobiographical images of himself, his transvestite alter ego Claire, and his family, as well as references to political events and an investigation of cultural stereotypes. Over the last five years Perry has also used embroidery and photography to explore these themes, for example Coming Out Dress 2000, a richly embroidered dress for Claire which Perry wore during a performance which merged his private female persona with his artwork.