Ian YoungsCulture reporter
Artist and ActionSpace
Nnena Kalu has been gaining recognition in the art world in recent years
This year’s Turner Prize, the UK’s most high-profile art award, has been won by Nnena Kalu for her “bold and compelling” sculptures and drawings, making her the first artist with a learning disability to win.
The judges praised Kalu’s brightly-coloured sculptures – which are haphazardly wrapped in layers of ribbon, string, card and shiny VHS tape – and her drawings of swirling, tornado-like shapes.
Glasgow-born, London-based Kalu, 59, has been a resident artist with Action Space, which supports artists with learning disabilities, for more than 25 years.
She was named the winner of the £25,000 Turner Prize at a ceremony in Bradford, the UK’s current city of culture, on Tuesday.
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Tape, ribbons, string and cardboard are among the materials used to make Nnena Kalu’s sculptures
‘Beautiful intricacy’
Kalu, an autistic, learning disabled artist with limited verbal communication, has worked with Action Space since 1999 and has been gradually gaining recognition in the wider art world in recent years.
The Turner Prize judges were impressed by the “really compelling sculptures and drawings that could only be made by Nnena”, according to the jury chairman, Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson.
Her drawings, which come in sets of two or three near-identical shapes, have “a beautiful intricacy to them” and “look like swirling vortexes”, he said.
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Unusual materials
Her sculptures, meanwhile, are hanging shapes covered in reams of re-purposed materials including fabric, rope, parcel tape, cling film and paper.
They resemble three-dimensional versions of abstract expressionist paintings, Mr Farquharson said. “But they’re not paintings, they’re not flat on the wall. They’re suspended in the space that you’re in, like brightly coloured rocks or creatures.
“They’re at almost your eye level. Although there are no figurative features at all, they appear to be communing among themselves and with you.
“The use of materials is highly unusual, including video tape that gets wrapped round and round.
“The colours and the lines the materials make are very like brush marks translated into three dimensions. They’re very gestural, they’re very expressive, they’re very compelling.”
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Historic moment
The judges deliberated for two or three hours, Mr Farquharson said, and stressed that their choice of winner was based purely on merit.
“The result wasn’t about wanting, first and foremost, to give the prize to Nnena as the first neurodiverse artist. That wasn’t a driving factor,” he said.
“It was interest in, and a real belief in, the quality and uniqueness of her practice, which is inseparable from who she is.”
It is a historic moment, though, he told BBC News.
“It breaks down walls between, if you like, neurotypical and neurodiverse artists. It becomes really about the power and quality of the work itself, whatever the artist’s identity is.
“So maybe what’s historic about it is it’s one more move to include really great neurodiverse artists in the picture we present of art today.”
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All of the shortlisted artists’ works are on show at thye Cartwright Hall gallery in Bradford
The result was announced at a ceremony at Bradford Grammar School, the former school of artist David Hockney.
Works by all four shortlisted artists are currently on show at the nearby Cartwright Hall gallery, and the Turner Prize exhibition will be open until 22 February 2026.
The other nominees were Rene Matić, Zadie Xa and Mohammed Sami, who will receive £10,000 each.
The Turner Prize has been the UK’s most coveted and controversial art award since it was founded in 1984. Past winners include Lubaina Himid, Jeremy Deller, Grayson Perry, Steve McQueen and Damien Hirst.