Jerwood drawing winners announced

Woodfine wins £5,000 for her drawing, entitled Wyoming 2003

Dorset-born artist Sarah Woodfine has won the 2004 Jerwood drawing prize for her minimalist artwork Wyoming 2003.

Stephen Walter came second with Throw Away After Use, based on a road map of London. Third prize went to Tom Hammick for his abstract drawing Silver Dart.

This year saw more than 2000 entries submitted to the UK's largest annual open drawing competition.

Tony Godfrey, one of the three judges, said the exhibition should be regarded as a "lexicon of possibilities".

"The selectors chose from an, at times, bewildering variety," continued Mr Godfrey, director of Sotheby's Institute of Art.

"The three main prizes indicate three equally different avenues of exploration: a captured-on-the-instant image, a meticulously and exhaustively made map [and] a precisely conceived composition hovering between abstraction and realism."

'Matissean'

Woodfine, Walter and Hammick win £5,000, £3,000 and £2,000 respectively.

The three-strong judging panel - which included artist Basil Beattie and curator Mary Doyle - also awarded two student prizes.

Conrad Frankel's Portrait of Phoebe wins a £1,000 prize

Conrad Frankel, a student at City & Guilds of London Art School, won £1,000 for Portrait of Phoebe, described by Mr Gilroy as "a Matissean image of a woman".

Ailbhe Ni Bhriain, from Galway, was awarded the same amount for Immergence, a DVD of ink being poured into a water tank.

Mr Gilroy called the latter "something apparently wholly radical... a drawing by special pleading only".

The artists were recognised on Tuesday at a ceremony at the Jerwood's London exhibition space, where the pieces will be displayed until 17 October.

According to director Anita Taylor, the competition - initiated in 1991 - is the longest running and largest open exhibition of drawing in the UK.