Nnena Kalu Wins the Turner Prize 2025: Gesture, Material and Presence in Contemporary Art

The Turner Prize 2025 has been awarded to Nnena Kalu, one of the most intense and distinctive voices in contemporary British art.

Turner Prize 2025. Photo (c) James Speakman_PA Media Assignments

The announcement was made during a public ceremony at Bradford Grammar School, hosted by Steven Frayne, widely known as Dynamo, as part of Bradford UK City of Culture 2025 and broadcast live on BBC News. The winner receives £25,000, while the other shortlisted artists – Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa – each receive £10,000.

The jury highlighted the quality and boldness of all four presentations, which together offer a complex and multifaceted picture of contemporary art today. Painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, sound and photography coexist in diverse practices, united by a strong formal and conceptual awareness. The Turner Prize 2025 exhibition at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford has already attracted over 34,000 visitors, confirming strong public engagement.

Nnena Kalu’s practice stood out for its powerful physical presence. She creates hanging sculptures using heterogeneous materials – repurposed fabrics, ropes, parcel tape, plastic film, paper and VHS tape reels – assembled into enveloping forms reminiscent of nests or cocoons. Alongside the sculptures, Kalu presents large abstract drawings built through repeated, vigorous and rhythmic gestures that generate dense vortices and spirals. The jury praised her ability to translate expressive gesture into works of striking visual and spatial impact, noting her refined control of scale, colour and composition.

Drawing 12, 2021, Nnena Kalu. Installation view at Turner Prize 2025, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery. Courtesy of the artist, ActionSpace, London and Arcadia Missa, London. Photo © David Levene

Born in Glasgow in 1966 and active for over two decades in London, where she is a resident artist with ActionSpace at Studio Voltaire, Kalu has developed a coherent and unmistakable practice, often realised directly within the exhibition space. Her works do not merely occupy space but activate it, establishing a dynamic dialogue between body, material and environment.

Installation view of Nnena Kalu’s presentation at the Turner Prize 2025, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery. Photo © David Levene

Founded in 1984 and named after J.M.W. Turner, the prize remains one of the most important platforms for observing developments in British contemporary art. In 2025, the Turner Prize once again confirms its role as a critical arena for practices that engage the present with both radicality and sensitivity. With Nnena Kalu’s victory, the prize recognises an artistic vision that combines emotional intensity and formal rigour, transforming humble materials into powerful structures that resonate in both memory and space.

Turner Prize 2025

27 September 2025 to 22 February 2026