Gold fresco wins Turner Prize

Glasgow-based artist Richard Wright, who created a beautiful fresco in gold leaf, has won this year's Turner Prize, the U.K.'s most prestigious art prize.

It was a surprising choice for the Turner committee, which often opts for more outrageous art like Damien Hirst's pickled sharks and Mark Wallinger's State Britain, which reproduced the posters of an antiwar protester.

Wright was a figurative painter working on canvas until the early 1990s. Then he rediscovered the techniques used by old masters who use paint and gold leaf to create designs directly on a wall.

For the Turner Prize-winning work, he said he was inspired by memories of travelling down from Scotland to London, England, to visit the Tate Gallery on the overnight bus when he was younger.

Wright's intricate, abstract creations only survive the length of an exhibition and are painted over at the end of the show. Wright has said of his art: "This work is not for the future; it's for now."

The Turner Prize judges "admired the profound originality and beauty of Wright's work."

Wright himself appeared surprised to win the prize, named after British landscape artist J.M.W. Turner.

"I have nothing grand to say about that, just thank you. That's all I have to say," he said in his acceptance speech at the Tate on Monday.

The prize comes with a cash award equivalent to $43,175 Cdn. Wright, 49, would be ineligible for the prize next year as the artists must be under age 50.

His competition included Roger Hiorns who filled an abandoned apartment with shimmering blue crystals including a melted passenger jet engine, and Enrico David, whose work includes pictures of unclothed dolls, as well as Lucy Skaer, whose entry features 26 sculptures made from coal dust. Each of the finalists gets $8,633 Cdn.

The exhibit of Turner nominees remains at the Tate in London until Jan. 3.