Turner Prize 2022 shortlist unveiled: meet the artists

Tate Liverpool has unveiled the shortlist for the 2022 Turner Prize, which comprises four artists: Heather Phillipson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan and Sin Wai Kin.

Last year, the Turner prize 2021 encompassed a full house of artist collectives for the first time in history, with Belfast-based Array Collective crowned the winner. 

This year, it’s largely back to business as usual, if such a thing can ever be said for the Turner Prize. 

Turner Prize 2022: meet the four shortlisted artists 

Heather Phillipson

Brimming with absurdity, tragedy and wit, Heather Phillipson's work is characterised by a wide, and often wild collision of materials, media and concepts, what the artist terms ‘quantum thought experiments’. Phillipson was nominated for her solo exhibition ‘Rupture No 1: blowtorching the bitten peach’ at Tate Britain, London, and her Fourth Plinth commission, The End. 

Ingrid Pollard

Ingrid Pollard’s work explores our increasingly complex and fraught relationship with the natural world and delves into ideas around Britishness, race and sexuality. The jury selected Pollard for her solo exhibition ‘Carbon Slowly Turning’ at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, struck by the artist’s astute unearthing of histories hidden in plain sight, and her ambitious recent developments in kinetic sculpture. 

Veronica Ryan

It’s been quite a year for Veronica Ryan, who was nominated for her solo exhibition ‘Along a Spectrum’ at Spike Island, Bristol, and her Hackney Windrush Artwork Commission in London. The artist’s ultra-tactile sculpture and installations blend natural and fabricated forms to explore themes of displacement, fragmentation and alienation, as well as the ongoing psychological impact of the pandemic.

Sin Wai Kin

Sin Wai Kin’s multifaceted work blends fantasy and reality through storytelling in performance, film, writing, and print. Their work draws on the experience of existing at the intersection of fixed categories, specifically the experience of being non-binary and mixed-race. Nominated for their involvement in the ‘British Art Show 9’ and their solo presentation at Blindspot Gallery, Frieze London, the artist was praised for their film, A Dream of Wholeness in Parts, 2021, in which ancient Chinese philosophy and dramaturgy merged with contemporary drag, music and poetry. 

An exhibition showcasing the Turner Prize 2022 shortlisted artists will be held at Tate Liverpool from 20 October 2022 to 19 March 2023, with the winner announced in December 2022 at an award ceremony in Liverpool. 

This year marks the Turner Prize’s return to Liverpool for the first time in 15 years. Tate Liverpool was the first gallery beyond London to host the prize in 2007, when it helped launch the city’s year as the European Capital of Culture.

Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain and co-chair of the Turner Prize jury, said: ‘With so many museums and galleries [having reopened] in May 2021, it’s been a terrific 12 months for contemporary British art, as demonstrated by this excitingly rich and varied Turner Prize shortlist. Art has provided much-needed enjoyment and escape over the past year, but it has also helped to reconnect us with each other and the world around us, as the practices of the four shortlisted artists variously exemplify. I congratulate all four artists on their brilliant contributions and can’t wait to see their exhibition at Tate Liverpool.’

The Turner Prize 2022 jury comprises Irene Aristizábal, head of curatorial and public practice, Baltic; Christine Eyene, research fellow at the School of Arts and Media, UCLan; Robert Leckie, director, Spike Island; and Anthony Spira, director of MK Gallery.

INFORMATION

The Turner Prize 2022 shortlist exhibition will be held at Tate Liverpool from 20 October 2022 to 19 March 2023, with the winner announced in December 2022. tate.org.uk