British artist Martin Boyce won the 2011 Turner Prize

A British installation sculptor who uses 20th century modernist influences to create artificial trees and items such as litter bins Monday won the Turner Prize, Britain’s most prestigious contemporary art award.

Martin Boyce, 44, was awarded the 25,000-pound (39,000-dollar) prize for his entry, likened to an indoor park complete with paper leaves, which combined interior design and high modernism, the judges ruled.

They applauded his "pioneering contribution to the current interest contemporary artists have in historic modernism, while continuing to develop and find new directions within the same vocabulary."

Boyce, who is based in Glasgow, Scotland, received the prestigious, but frequently controversial, prize at the Baltic art gallery in Gateshead, in the north-eastern city of Newcastle.

The Turner Prize is awarded each year to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition in the previous year.