Veronica Ryan has been honoured for her Windrush artwork
(Picture: Brian Roberts / Turner Prize / PA)Veronica Ryan, who created the UK’s first permanent public artwork to honour the Windrush generation, has won this year’s Turner Prize.
Ryan, 66, has become the oldest artist to win the prize, which is one of the world’s most prestigious awards for visual arts.
She was nominated for the Windrush sculpture, which was unveiled in Hackney, London, last year, and for her solo exhibition Along a Spectrum at Spike Island, Bristol.
"Power! Visibility!" she shouted after her name was announced at the ceremony in Liverpool, where she was awarded a £25,000 cheque.
Alex Farquharson, co-chair of the judges and director of Tate Britain, said on Wednesday (December 7): “The jury were excited by the recent turn in the work of an artist whose practice goes back to the 1980s. There are more elements in the space and a heightened use of colour. Humble seeds or pods, or old plastic bottles, are transformed in unexpected and subtle ways.”
When nominating her, the jury also praised the “exquisite sensuality and tactility” of Along a Spectrum, which explores ecology, history, dislocation, and the psychological impact of the pandemic.
Past winners of the £25,000 annual prize, which goes to a British artist or one working primarily in Britain, include Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, and Damien Hirst. The other three nominees on the 2022 shortlist — Heather Phillipson, Sin Wai Kin, and Ingrid Pollard — received £10,000 each at the awards ceremony on Wednesday evening.
Who is Veronica Ryan?
Ryan – who received an OBE last year – was born in Montserrat and came to the UK as a child in the 1950s. Her art uses the fruits, seeds, and even volcanic ash from her home island.
She pursued her artistic education at the Slade School of Art in London, followed by SOAS, where she was inspired by the works of Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois, and Barbara Hepworth.
She completed her studies at the beginning of the 1980s, coinciding with the rise of the British black arts movement.
A product of the British Caribbean diaspora, Ryan is particularly inspired by questions of origins, memory, and belonging in relation to place.
Her most famous installation, a memorial to the Windrush generation, was unveiled outside Hackney Town Hall in 2021. It features a giant custard apple, breadfruit, and soursop, rendered in marble and bronze, paying tribute to the people who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean between the late 1940s and 1970s.
“I chose those particular fruit and veg because they’re what my mum ate when she was pregnant with me,” Ryan explained in a video created for her Turner Prize nomination. “I like the idea that there’s this whole side of nurture and healing and mother-daughter relationships and intergenerational information being passed on.”
Ryan now divides her time between New York and Bristol, where she held a show this year exploring themes of migration, history, and the psychological effects of the pandemic.
She creates sculptural objects and installations using containers, compartments, and combinations of natural and fabricated forms to reference themes such as displacement, fragmentation, alienation, and loss.
Ryan’s work is in the permanent collections of the Arts Council of Great Britain, Tate, and The Henry Moore Collection.
