The shortlisted artists – Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa – were announced on 23 April 2025, 250 years to the day since the birth of Turner.
Their work will feature in the annual Turner Prize exhibition, which takes place at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery. The winner will be announced in Bradford on 9 December 2025.
Nnena Kalu makes cocoon-like shapes out of paper and textiles, which are then bound, layered and wrapped in brightly coloured cellophane and tape to create expressive hanging sculptural installations. Her work is rooted in a process of repeated gestures, as seen in her abstract swirling drawings on paper. The jury commended her unique command of material, colour and gesture, and her highly attuned responses to architectural space.
Rene Matić captures fleeting moments of joy in daily life, and expressions of tenderness within a wider political context. Their work includes highly personal photographs of family and friends in stacked frames, paired with sound, banners and installation. The jury was struck by the artist’s ability to express concerns around belonging and identity, conveying broader experiences of a young generation and their community through an intimate and compelling body of work.
Mohammed Sami is best known for his large-scale paintings that explore memory and loss. Sami layers pattern and colour to create haunting, dreamlike scenes, drawing on his life in Baghdad during the Iraq War and as a refugee in Sweden. He paints empty landscapes, interiors and items of furniture, devoid of people, as metaphors for absent bodies and their memories. The jury praised the artist’s powerful representation of war and exile, exhibited against the backdrop of Blenheim Palace.
Zadie Xa’s work interweaves painting, mural, textile and sound. She focuses on the sea as a spiritual realm to explore traditions and folklore, speaking to a multitude of cultures. Her vibrant installation blended a soundscape with ethereal paintings, bojagi patchwork and an interactive sculpture of over 650 brass wind chimes inspired by Korean shamanic ritual bells. The jury felt that this cohesive work was a sophisticated development of Xa’s reflective and enchanting practice.
Main Image: Nnena Kalu, Hanging Sculpture 1 to 10, installation view, 2024. Photo courtesy of Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana. Photo credit: Ivan Erofeev.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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