British artist Mark Leckey speaks after winning the 2008 Turner Prize at the Tate Britain in London on Monday. (Andrew Winning/Reuters)

British artist Mark Leckey, whose work incorporates images of Felix the Cat and Homer Simpson, has won this year's Turner Prize, Britain's biggest contemporary art award.

Leckey, 44, won the £25,000 prize ($46,000) on Monday at London's Tate Britain gallery.

Leckey, a professor of film studies at Frankfurt's Staedelschule, combines sculpture, film, sound and performance in his works.

He presented the Turner jury with Cinema-in-the-Round, which shows the artist lecturing in a deadpan voice on the nature of the filmed image in popular culture, with references to James Cameron's Titanic, Felix the Cat and an episode of The Simpsons.

Another of Leckey's works in the exhibition is Made in 'Eaven, in which Leckey appears to have recreated Jeff Koons's stainless steel sculpture Rabbit inside his flat.

"He celebrates the imagination of the individual and our potential to inhabit, reclaim or animate an idea, a space, or an object," the jury said.

Leckey, originally from Birkenhead, called the win "a big thrill."

The only man on the short list, he was the favourite to win. Other contenders were Goshka Macuga, Runa Islam and Cathy Wilkes.

The Turner, a controversial contest that has seen entries involving unmade beds and pickled sharks, was remarkable this year for its lack of controversy.

Only Wilkes's exhibit, a female mannequin on the toilet with pieces of wood and horseshoes tied to her face, even raised eyebrows.

Nonetheless, 60,000 people streamed through London's Tate Britain to see the shortlisted entries.