Contemporary artist Cathy Wilkes, who lives and works in Glasgow, has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

Wilkes bases her art around everyday items, including televisions, baby buggies, toilets, food, and most notably, shop window mannequins.

Wilkes, 42, who was one of the first artists in Scotland to open her city flat as a gallery and helped found the Glasgow Women's Library in 1988, has been shortlisted for the £25,000 modern art prize alongside artists Runa Islam, Mark Leckey and Goshka Macuga.

This year's Turner Prize shortlist has taken a conceptual turn again, after last year's prize was won by a largely political piece and the year before won by a painter.

Leckey's work, in particular, uses pictures originally created elsewhere, employing images taken from the US cartoons The Simpsons and Felix the Cat, as well as clips from the movie Titanic and shots from Disney cartoons.

If Wilkes, whose work represented Scotland at the Venice Bienalle, triumphs in the award, and last night her odds were quoted as 11/4, she would be a rare female winner of the prize - only three women have won since 1984.

Previous Scottish winners include Simon Starling in 2005, who built a boat from a shed before turning it back into a shed, the leading video artist Douglas Gordon and Martin Creed.

Stephen Deuchar, Tate Britain's director and chairman of the 2008 jury, said of this year's shortlist: "The works are not especially easy this time. The audience for contemporary British Art has now become incredibly sophisticated. These are not just one-liners."

Wilkes has been shortlisted for her solo exhibition at Milton Keynes Gallery.

The judges said: "Through rigorous, highly-charged arrangements of commonplace objects and materials, Wilkes has developed an articulate and eloquent vocabulary that touches on issues of femininity and sexuality."

One of Wilkes's pieces, We Are Pro-Choice, features a mannequin on a toilet with a bowl of left-over bits of dried porridge at her feet. The bowl is a reference to Walter Fickert's painting Lazarus Breaks His Fast, from 1927, with porridge the first meal eaten after the resurrection.

Toby Webster, director of the Modern Institute in Glasgow who represent Wilkes, said that her inclusion was recognition for years of influential work in the contemporary art scene. "I have spoken to her and she is delighted. It's really a complement to her work," he said.

The £25,000 prize is awarded to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or presentation of their work in the 12 months before May 6.

Each of the shortlisted artists will showcase their work in October at the Tate Britain in London before the winner is announced on December 1.