The artist was recognised for her exhibition ‘Along a Spectrum’ at Spike Island and a public sculpture commission in Hackney
Veronica Ryan has won this year’s Turner Prize.
The artist was recognised for her exhibition Along a Spectrum at Spike Island, Bristol, in 2021, alongside a sculpture commission in Hackney – featuring giant marble and bronze renderings of Caribbean fruit (soursop, breadfruit, and custard apple) – to celebrate the Windrush generation, the first permanent public piece to do so.
Ryan was awarded the GBP£25,000 prize at a ceremony at St George’s Hall, Liverpool, while the other nominees – Heather Phillipson, Sin Wai Kin and Ingrid Pollard – each received GBP£10,000.
‘Ryan’s sculptures are deeply invested in what makes something a sculpture, as ordinary things are made, remade and modified by small acts of craft,’ wrote ArtReview’s J.J. Charlesworth earlier this year, commenting on the artist’s ‘perceptive teasing out of how an object can elude a language of pre-existing shapes and ideas’.
This year’s jury consisted of Irene Aristizábal, Head of Curatorial and Public Practice, BALTIC, Christine Eyene, Lecturer in Contemporary Art, Liverpool John Moores University, Robert Leckie, Director, Spike Island, and Anthony Spira, Director, MK Gallery.
The 2022 edition was a ‘nervy, loud and unstable Turner Prize,’ Charlesworth concluded in his assessment of the shortlist, though troubled by conflicts of interest regarding the jurors and their nominations, with three members of the jury heading up galleries which hosted the shortlisted exhibitions.
