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The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Her need to make is off the scale': why Nnena Kalu's Turner prize nomination is a watershed moment for art
One day, out of the blue, everything changed for Nnena Kalu. For more than a decade, she'd been making a certain kind of drawing, in a certain kind of way – repeated shapes, clusters of colour, all organised in rows. 'Then, in 2013, she just suddenly started to go whoosh,' says Charlotte Hollinshead, Kalu's studio manager and artistic facilitator, making big, swirling, circular hand gestures. 'Everybody in the studio just stopped. She was somebody who had such a set way of working, for years and years and years, repeated over and over. For this to suddenly change was really quite shocking.' It was a shock that would set Kalu on the path to becoming the first learning-disabled artist to be nominated for the Turner prize, as she was last month. Her drawings are incredible: vast, hypnotic, swirling vortices of repeated circular marks on pale yellow paper. But it's her sculptural installations that have garnered the most attention: huge cocoons made of found fabric and VHS tape, wrapped into massive, tight, twisting, ultra-colourful knots. It was an installation of these heady sculptures at Manifesta 15, a pan-European art biennial held in Barcelona last year, that brought her to the attention of the Turner committee. Kalu, who has limited verbal communication, was born in Glasgow in 1966 to Nigerian parents, but moved at a young age to Wandsworth in London, where she still lives in supported care, not far from her studio at ActionSpace, a charity that provides space and assistance to learning disabled artists. She is autistic with complex support needs, and Hollinshead leads the team that has been helping to nurture her creative endeavours since 1999. 'From the beginning, her need to make was off the scale,' says Hollinshead, who has been at Kalu's side for almost 30 years. It was at Hill House day centre in nearby Tooting in the late 1980s that Kalu first started exploring her creativity, before developing a more focused art practice, centred on drawing, when she joined the ActionSpace studio. But she was limited by space. 'I always knew Nnena had potential for sculptural work,' says Hollinshead. 'I held back on it slightly because we didn't have the room or the budget. Nnena requires a lot of materials.' It wasn't until the council gave ActionSpace access to empty shops in 2010 that Kalu could really let loose. 'For the first time, she had loads of room, so I laid out some materials, and she just blew our minds,' says Hollinshead. 'She started making these cocoons, assembling them really quickly and attaching them all over the place. It was amazing to suddenly see somebody actually be free. She was glowing. The minute we opened that floodgate, there was no way to close it.' Slowly but surely, bigger opportunities followed. In 2016 she showed alongside contemporary artists including Laure Prouvost at an exhibition in Belgium; in 2018, she took part in Glasgow International; 2024 saw her first commercial gallery show at Arcadia Missa in London. She's just opened a major institutional exhibition at Norway's Kunsthall Stavanger. It's a career trajectory that any contemporary artist would aspire to. Her work has echoes of Phyllida Barlow or Sheila Hicks: it wouldn't be out of place in a Tate or Pompidou. 'I think out of all the artists we work with, Nnena's work stood out from the very beginning as really fitting in within contemporary art,' says Hollinshead. 'It was always just significantly different in terms of its ambition and quality and approach. It always felt really fresh and exciting and immediate. So we have always insisted that she be seen as a contemporary artist, so that she doesn't get sidelined as an outsider or disabled artist.' The challenge is how to present Kalu's art, and her disability, to an audience unused to dealing with both at the same time. When I first reviewed her work, in 2024 at Arcadia Missa, there was an insistence on her disability not being mentioned. 'We were just starting to work out how we do this,' says Hollinshead. 'How do we support an artist with limited communication, who isn't in a position herself to say how she wants to be described, how do we honour her work? We were really worried that the learning disability would be fetishised, and that the focus wouldn't be on the work.' Kalu has since been given a bigger platform, and that's now viewed by Hollinshead as an opportunity to talk about her experience rather than hide it away: 'We have to celebrate this. She's an amazing role model.' Besides, in contemporary art, context is everything. You can't talk about the three other artists nominated for this year's Turner prize without talking about their backgrounds. Zadie Xa's Korean heritage, Mohammed Sami's youth in war-torn Iraq, Rene Matić's experience growing up queer and mixed-race in Peterborough. These things are all integral to their work, ingrained in everything they do. Why would it be any different for Kalu? 'I feel that it's as much a part of her identity as being a woman and being Black and being in her 50s and everything else,' says Sheryll Catto, ActionSpace's director. 'What we don't want to get into is a forensic discussion about exactly what her disability is, because it's irrelevant. We're not engaging with the diagnosis or anything. We're engaging with Nnena as an artist.' Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion The ultimate aim is balance, an attempt to feel out how best to present the work. How do you focus on Kalu's art without erasing her experience, and how do you talk about that experience without fetishising it? 'I don't know what the majority of our artists at ActionSpace have got,' says Hollinshead. 'I don't know any clinical diagnosis. And I don't want to know, because they're people. I know that Nnena adores Abba …' 'And dancing, and champagne, and cake!' Catto chimes in. 'And that's more important than anything else. We're focused on the joyous wonderfulness of all of our artists, that's what we do.' Hollinshead and Kalu are obviously close, with a relationship built on a huge amount of trust. 'For a learning-disabled artist to succeed, it takes a team of people, and it's a family approach, it needs a lot of love and support. I've spent a huge amount of time with Nnena in her studio, in nightclubs, in Nando's. She's like part of my family.' Kalu is working on two huge, swirling drawings on my visit, making repeated, obsessive but precise marks that twist and turn over the paper. The two works echo each other, the same marks appearing across both, neatly mirrored. As well as champagne, Abba and cake, Kalu loves beautiful fingernails and proudly shows off some immaculate lilac gel nails while looking thoroughly unimpressed at my own chewed up cuticles. I ask Hollinshead how Kalu feels about the Turner nomination. 'I think the enormity of the Turner prize is a very abstract idea, but she absolutely loves putting exhibitions together, and this will be another big exhibition. She will understand about the award situation, I think, when she gets to the award ceremony.' This is clearly a watershed moment for arts and disabilities, a total shifting of the traditional art paradigm. 'The nomination is phenomenal,' says Hollinshead. 'It's seismic. Someone said to me the other day, 'It's like someone's just thrown a bomb into the Turner prize – and it is like that. A good bomb.'
Observer
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
Turner Prize shortlist includes artist who uses 'salvaged' dolls
An artist who uses dolls "salvaged" from charity shops and online in their work and another who uses VHS tape are among those on the shortlist for the Turner Prize 2025. Peterborough artist Rene Matic was among the four shortlisted artists announced at Tate Britain on Wednesday for their first institutional solo exhibition, called "As Opposed To The Truth," which touches on ideas of the rise of right-wing populism and identities. Alongside Matic were three fellow London-based artists: Glasgow-born Nnena Kalu, Mohammed Sami, who first moved to Sweden after leaving Iraq, and Canada-born Zadie Xa. Matic, 27, was praised by the jury for expressing "concerns around belonging and identity, conveying broader experiences of a young generation and their community through an intimate and compelling body of work." Their work examines themes including "the constructed self through the lens of rudeness," which they have taken from rudeboy culture, a Jamaican subculture in the United Kingdom. It includes personal photographs of family and friends in stacked frames, paired with sound, banners, and an installation at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Berlin. They also have an ongoing collection called Restoration, which focuses on "antique black dolls salvaged by the artist" and a flag quoting political leaders who called for "no place for violence" in the wake of the attempted assassination of US President Donald Trump. Kalu, born in Glasgow in 1966, is a resident artist at ActionSpace's studio, which supports learning-disabled artists across London, at Studio Voltaire. She creates large-scale abstract sculptures and drawings that hang down from the wall or ceiling. The items are made from colourful streams of repurposed fabric, rope, parcel tape, cling film, paper, and reels of VHS tape. Kalu is nominated for her installation "Hanging Sculpture 1-10," which Manifesta 15 Barcelona commissioned her to create at a disused power station, and her presentation in "Conversations," a group exhibition at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The works contain 10 large brightly coloured sculptures that hang among the grey concrete pillars of the industrial site, and a work in pen, graphite, and chalk pen on two pieces of paper. She was commended for "her unique command of material, colour, and gesture and her highly attuned responses to architectural space." Xa, 41, who studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and the Royal College of Art in London, is influenced by her Korean background and its "spiritual rituals, shamanism, folk traditions, and textile practices." She is nominated for "Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything (2025)," which was created with Spanish artist Benito Mayor Vallejo and shown at the Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates. It has a sound element inspired by Salpuri, a Korean exorcism dance, and a mobile sculpture inspired by seashell wind chimes and Korean shamanic rattles, which has 650 brass bells that produce harmonised sounds. Painter Sami, 40, born in Baghdad, has studied at the Belfast School of Art and Goldsmiths College, London. He says, "My paintings seek to capture the state of confusion that occurs because of the cut thread between reality and imagination; between war narrated and war witnessed." Sami was nominated for "After the Storm: Mohammed Sami at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire," which features 14 paintings that respond to the history of Sir Winston Churchill's birthplace, containing "hints and references to conflict in Iraq." The paintings do not feature human figures, while one shows the "shadow of a helicopter blade over a table and empty chairs," and another appears to suggest body bags. An exhibition of works will be held at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery from 27 September 2025 to 22 February 2026 during the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations. The winner will be announced on 9 December 2025 at an award ceremony in Bradford. Last year, Scottish artist Jasleen Kaur, who placed a doily on a car, won the prestigious art prize, which awards £25,000 to its winner and £10,000 to the other shortlisted artists. Previous recipients include sculptor Anish Kapoor (1991), artist Damien Hirst (1995), and filmmaker Steve McQueen (1999). —PA Media/dpa
Times
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Autistic artist with speech limitations on Turner Prize shortlist
An autistic artist with severe speech limitations has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize after wowing jurors with her large sculptures that require enormous amounts of increasingly scarce VHS tape. Nnena Kalu, 58, who was born in Glasgow, is one of four artists shortlisted for the leading contemporary art prize with the jury praising her 'assured and very beautiful cocoon-like sculptures'. Kalu has been supported for more than 25 years by the London-based ActionSpace, which works with artists who have learning disabilities. Her key supporter, Charlotte Hollinshead, devotes much time to securing the increasingly scarce VHS tape that the artist likes to deploy in her sculptures along with fabrics, paper and clingfilm. Sam Leckey, the director of Liverpool Biennial and one of this year's judges,
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Glasgow-born autistic artist shortlisted for Turner prize
A Glasgow-born autistic artist who binds plastic bags in video tape to create huge hanging sculptures has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize. Nnena Kalu, who was first spotted by the art world with a successful show at the Glasgow International festival of contemporary art in 2019, has held a series of solo shows in recent years showcasing her work. She creates large-scale abstract sculptures and drawings that hang down from the wall or ceiling, made from colourful streams of repurposed fabric, rope, parcel tape, cling film, paper and reels of VHS tape. Kalu, a resident artist at ActionSpace's studio, which supports learning disabled artists across London, at Studio Voltaire, is supported by Charlotte Hollinshead, her artist's assistant. Kalu is unable to articulate complex thoughts verbally, so Hollinshead speaks on her behalf, and provides her with colourful streams of repurposed fabric, rope, parcel tape, cling film, paper and reels of VHS tape to create her art. She is nominated for her installation Hanging Sculpture 1-10, which Manifesta 15 Barcelona commissioned her to create at a disused power station, and her presentation in Conversations, a group exhibition at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Mohammed Sami's After the Storm at Blenheim Palace (Image: Tom Lindboe/Blenheim Palace) The works contain 10 large brightly coloured sculptures that hung among the grey concrete pillars of the industrial site, and a work in pen, graphite and chalk pen on two pieces of paper. She was commended for 'her unique command of material, colour and gesture and her highly attuned responses to architectural space'. Also nominated are Peterborough artist Rene Matic and fellow London-based artists Mohammed Sami, who first moved to Sweden after leaving Iraq, and Canada-born Zadie Xa. Matic, 27, was praised by the jury for expressing 'concerns around belonging and identity, conveying broader experiences of a young generation and their community through an intimate and compelling body of work'. READ MORE: Who is Jasleen Kaur, Glasgow's Turner Prize-winning artist? I visited Edinburgh's Turner exhibition - and it is utterly splendid Their work looks at themes including 'the constructed self through the lens of rudeness', which they have taken from rudeboy culture, a Jamaican subculture in the UK. It includes personal photographs of family and friends in stacked frames, paired with sound, banners, and an installation at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Berlin, Germany. They also have an ongoing collection called Restoration, which focuses on 'antique black dolls salvaged by the artist' and a flag quoting political leaders who called for 'no place for violence' in the wake of the attempted assassination of US President Donald Trump. Xa, 41, who studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and the Royal College of Art in London, is influenced by her Korean background and its 'spiritual rituals, shamanism, folk traditions and textile practices'. Rene Matic's work in Berlin (Image: Diana Pfammatter/CCA Berlin) She is nominated for Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything (2025), which was created with Spanish artist Benito Mayor Vallejo and shown at the United Arab Emirates' Sharjah Biennial. It has a sound element inspired by Salpuri, a Korean exorcism dance, and a mobile sculpture inspired by seashell wind chimes and Korean shamanic rattles, which has 650 brass bells that make harmonised sounds. Painter Sami, 40, born in Baghdad, has studied at the Belfast School of Art and Goldsmiths College, London. He says: 'My paintings seek to capture the state of confusion that occurs because of the cut thread between reality and the imagination; between war narrated and war witnessed.' Sami was given the nod for After the Storm: Mohammed Sami at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which has 14 paintings that respond to the history of Sir Winston Churchill's birthplace, and contain 'hints and references to conflict in Iraq'. The paintings do not have human figures, while one shows the 'shadow of a helicopter blade over a table and empty chairs', and another appears to suggest body bags. An exhibition of works will be held at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery from September 27 2025 to February 22 2026 during the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations. The winner will be announced on December 9 2025 at an award ceremony in Bradford. Last year, Scottish artist Jasleen Kaur - also from Glasgow - who put a doily on a car, won the prestigious art prize, which awards £25,000 to its winner and £10,000 to the other shortlisted artists. Previous recipients include sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor (1991), artist Damien Hirst (1995), and filmmaker Sir Steve McQueen (1999).
The Herald Scotland
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Glasgow-born autistic artist Nnena Kalu shortlisted for Turner prize
She creates large-scale abstract sculptures and drawings that hang down from the wall or ceiling, made from colourful streams of repurposed fabric, rope, parcel tape, cling film, paper and reels of VHS tape. Kalu, a resident artist at ActionSpace's studio, which supports learning disabled artists across London, at Studio Voltaire, is supported by Charlotte Hollinshead, her artist's assistant. Kalu is unable to articulate complex thoughts verbally, so Hollinshead speaks on her behalf, and provides her with colourful streams of repurposed fabric, rope, parcel tape, cling film, paper and reels of VHS tape to create her art. She is nominated for her installation Hanging Sculpture 1-10, which Manifesta 15 Barcelona commissioned her to create at a disused power station, and her presentation in Conversations, a group exhibition at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Mohammed Sami's After the Storm at Blenheim Palace (Image: Tom Lindboe/Blenheim Palace) The works contain 10 large brightly coloured sculptures that hung among the grey concrete pillars of the industrial site, and a work in pen, graphite and chalk pen on two pieces of paper. She was commended for 'her unique command of material, colour and gesture and her highly attuned responses to architectural space'. Also nominated are Peterborough artist Rene Matic and fellow London-based artists Mohammed Sami, who first moved to Sweden after leaving Iraq, and Canada-born Zadie Xa. Matic, 27, was praised by the jury for expressing 'concerns around belonging and identity, conveying broader experiences of a young generation and their community through an intimate and compelling body of work'. READ MORE: Their work looks at themes including 'the constructed self through the lens of rudeness', which they have taken from rudeboy culture, a Jamaican subculture in the UK. It includes personal photographs of family and friends in stacked frames, paired with sound, banners, and an installation at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Berlin, Germany. They also have an ongoing collection called Restoration, which focuses on 'antique black dolls salvaged by the artist' and a flag quoting political leaders who called for 'no place for violence' in the wake of the attempted assassination of US President Donald Trump. Xa, 41, who studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and the Royal College of Art in London, is influenced by her Korean background and its 'spiritual rituals, shamanism, folk traditions and textile practices'. Rene Matic's work in Berlin (Image: Diana Pfammatter/CCA Berlin) She is nominated for Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything (2025), which was created with Spanish artist Benito Mayor Vallejo and shown at the United Arab Emirates' Sharjah Biennial. It has a sound element inspired by Salpuri, a Korean exorcism dance, and a mobile sculpture inspired by seashell wind chimes and Korean shamanic rattles, which has 650 brass bells that make harmonised sounds. Painter Sami, 40, born in Baghdad, has studied at the Belfast School of Art and Goldsmiths College, London. He says: 'My paintings seek to capture the state of confusion that occurs because of the cut thread between reality and the imagination; between war narrated and war witnessed.' Sami was given the nod for After the Storm: Mohammed Sami at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which has 14 paintings that respond to the history of Sir Winston Churchill's birthplace, and contain 'hints and references to conflict in Iraq'. The paintings do not have human figures, while one shows the 'shadow of a helicopter blade over a table and empty chairs', and another appears to suggest body bags. An exhibition of works will be held at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery from September 27 2025 to February 22 2026 during the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations. The winner will be announced on December 9 2025 at an award ceremony in Bradford. Last year, Scottish artist Jasleen Kaur - also from Glasgow - who put a doily on a car, won the prestigious art prize, which awards £25,000 to its winner and £10,000 to the other shortlisted artists. Previous recipients include sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor (1991), artist Damien Hirst (1995), and filmmaker Sir Steve McQueen (1999).
