THE team behind an art gallery planned for the North-East is celebrating the choice of this year's Turner Prize winner.

The winning artist, Jeremy Deller, features prominently in the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima) collection, which will be showcased in the multi-million pound gallery, beginning to take shape in the town.

The £19.2m Erick van Egeraat-designed gallery and new civic square is due to be completed by the summer of 2006. But Mr Deller's work, This is Us, comprising video, audio CD and drawings, has already been acquired by mima, with funding from the Contemporary Arts Society Special Collection Scheme.

Mr Deller also contributed to a two-day exhibition that coincided with the annual free Music Live festival in the town, earlier this year.

Director of museums and galleries Godfrey Worsdale said: "It is a foretaste of the quality of work which mima will exhibit and the calibre of artist we will be working with."