Here are profiles of the individual artists:

Darren Almond Gillian Carnegie

Jim Lambie Simon Starling

Born in Wigan in 1971, Darren Almond lives and works in London. He graduated from the Winchester School of Art in 1993.

His work addresses the themes of time, geography and memory, using a range of media including photography, film and sculpture to explore the passing of time and the marks it leaves on both social and private histories.

Darren Almond's Terminus takes the form of two bus stops

He has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, New York and across Europe.

One of his first attention-grabbing pieces was in 1995 when he hooked his studio up to a live video link to London's Exmouth Market. He showed an empty studio apart from a flip-clock on a wall with the sound amplifying the passing of every minute.

Almond is also something of an explorer. In 2002 he was invited to become ship artist on the Mission Antarctica voyage to clear ecological waste from the shores of the Antarctica. From this he produced a series of photographs.

His contribution to Tate Britain's contemporary responses to JMW Turner saw him present photographs from well-known locations of Turner's paintings. Night as Day saw him shooting photographs in colour during a full moon and long exposures.

Gillian Carnegie works within the traditional genres of landscape, still life, nude and portraiture, using a variety of subjects.

She was born in 1971 and studied at Camberwell College of Art, going on to gain an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art.

Carnegie represents the first painter to be shortlisted in five years

Despite her classical training and methods, Carnegie is often exhibited alongside conceptual artists

Turner Prize judge Louisa Buck said Carnegie's paintings were as "much about the act of painting itself and what the stuff of paint can be made to say and do regardless of subject matter".

She often works in a series, one still life of flowers being revisited again and again as they decay over time.

Carnegie has exhibited in London, New York and Italy.

Jim Lambie was born in Scotland in 1964. He graduated from the Glasgow Art School having studied in the Environmental Department. He went on to have a year's artist residency at the Triangle in Marseille

He now divides his time between Glasgow and New York.

Lambie says he does not meticulously plan his work

One of his trademarks is making tight grids of tape on floors, creating patterns and designs that change the perceived shape of a room.

Lambie says he tends to have an idea in his head and then goes to the gallery to create it, rather than meticulously recreating something he has made in a studio over six months.

In fact he says he does not have a dedicated studio and works from a sketchbook.

He was in cult Glasgow band The Boy Hairdressers and continues to work as a DJ as well as an artist. There is a music theme running through many of his pieces.

"I work from an idea, and turn it into material,' said Lambie, "as opposed to other conceptual artists who try to get away from objects, I'm trying to get into them. I create myself a problem and try to find a solution that I'm happy with."

He Has exhibited in Germany, Turin, Chicago, Paris, Amsterdam, Chicago. Along with Simon Starling he represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale.

Simon Starling was born in Epsom, Surrey, and studied at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham and Glasgow School of Art. He lives and works in Glasgow.

He recycles objects, reframing and reforming them. For a 1997 project, Starling made a bicycle from aluminium parts taken from a Charles Eames chair.

Starling's bicycle was taken across the Tabernas Desert

For 2002 exhibition, Starling placed a car engine in a gallery and ran it continuously to provide enough heat for a cactus to survive.

He has had solo exhibitions at the Modern Institute in Glasgow and Fundacio Joan Miro in Barcelona, as well in New York, Nice and Frankfurt.

He and Jim Lambie were part of the team that represented Scotland at the 2003 Venice Biennale. He used the subject of rhododendrons which threaten the Scottish environment.