The BBC's Katherine Marston: "There is elephant dung on every single piece of work Chris Ofili has entered"

Chris Ofili incorporates lumps of elephant dung in every work, including one inspired by the sorrow of Stephen Lawrence's parents.

No Woman No Cry was created while the inquiry into the unsolved racial murder was going on in London.

It depicts a weeping black woman, and Stephen Lawrence's face appears in each tear.

The figure, who wears a pendant of elephant dung, was inspired by Doreen, although it is not a portrait of her.

Manchester-born Ofili, 30, is rated 5/4 on by William Hill to be named winner out of the four-strong shortlist for the £20,000 prize.

His colourful multi-layered paintings use glitter, photographs of leading black figures, often disguised or painted over, and his own cartoon-like characters.

Works by Ofili are favourite to win

Instead of hanging on the wall, each canvas is perched on two lumps of elephant dung.

At first Ofili used supplies he brought back from a trip to Zimbabwe.

Now he gets it from London Zoo, and dries it out in an airing cupboard.

If Ofili wins, he would be the first painter to win since Howard Hodgkin in 1985.

Ofili may be the only man and the sole painter on this year's shortlist, but he is not the only artist to raise eyebrows.

Cathy de Monchaux, 37, is a sculptor who has created her own disturbing, anatomical and religious visual vocabulary. At the heart of her exhibition are ranks of flat tombstone-shaped lead panels with an aisle of intricate Venus fly-trap shapes through the middle.

Cathy de Monchaux's Never Forget The Power Of Tears

William Hill have given her odds of 11/4 to win.

Second favourite at 5-1, Sam Taylor-Wood, 31, produces video and photographic works that conjure up a sophisticated urban world.

In Atlantic, three video projectors show three wall-sized views of a couple's tearful row, recreated by actors - with their row drowned out by an ambient soundtrack.

The fourth artist, Tacita Dean, 32, presents Disappearance At Sea, a 14-minute film showing dusk falling over a lighthouse. It is meant to evoke the deliberate disappearance of failed round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst in 1968.

Last year's winner: Gillian Wearing

The last two years of the Turner Prize have been triumphs for video artists - Gillian Wearing won in 1997and Douglas Gordon in 1996. Previous winners include Rachel Whiteread (1993), Anish Kapoor (1991) and Damien Hirst (1995).

Live coverage of the Turner Prize can be seen on Channel 4 from 2000 GMT on Tuesday. The jury includes Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant, author Marina Warner, British Council exhibition officer Ann Gallagher and Japanese curator Fumio Nanjo as well as Tate Gallery director Nicholas Serota.

French fashion designer agnes b will present the prize.

The exhibition, at the Tate Gallery, continues until January 10.