Nnena Kalu | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 (age 58–59) [1] |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
Nnena Kalu (born 1966) [1] is a British artist. She is known for her sculptures and drawings, for which she won the 2025 Turner Prize. [3] [2]
Kalu was born in Glasgow to Nigerian parents in 1966, and moved to Wandsworth in London at a young age. [4] She is autistic and has limited verbal communication. [5]
She began making art in the 1980s [2] at Hill House day centre in Tooting, in south London. [3]
Kalu began making sculptures around 2010, after making flat artworks for years. She begins with a bundle of paper, cloth, or another base structure, and then elaborates it - often compulsively - by wrapping, layering, and binding materials such as ropes, strips of fabric, unspooled VHS cassette tape, netting and rubbish. [6] [7] Her sculptures are usually made of found materials. [8] In 2013, she began making distinctive drawings which have been compared to whirlpools, usually completed in pairs or trios, [6] sometimes fours or sixes, but not alone. Kalu creates the drawings together, often with her eyes closed. [9]
Critics have focused on the physicality of her work, comparing her sculptures to bodies [10] and "disembowelled organs". [7]
In 1999, Kalu began working as an artist at ActionSpace in Clapham, an organization which assists artists with learning disabilities. [11]
In 2016, her works were shown in Belgium alongside artists such as Laure Prouvost, who won the Turner Prize in 2013; [3] at the 2018 Glasgow International; [12] Humber Street Gallery; [12] [13] and at Studio Voltaire. [14] Her first commercial show was in 2024, at Arcadia Missa in London. The gallery is her official representative. [6]
Creations of Care, [9] Kalu's first major institutional show, was held in 2025 at the Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway. [3] Later in 2025, she won the Turner Prize, the most prominent British art award. [11] The jury nominated her for her work in Conversations at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and Hanging Sculpture 1 to 10 at Manifesta 15 in Barcelona. [15] The BBC described her winning works as drawings of tornado-like swirls, and brightly coloured sculptures that are wrapped haphazardly with layers of materials such as ribbon, string, card and VHS tape. [11]
She was the first artist with a learning disability to win the prize, [11] and her facilitator and studio manager, Charlotte Hollinshead, made a speech on her behalf, in which she said that Kalu "has faced an incredible amount of discrimination" and hoped that award would help "smash the prejudice away." [3]
Kalu's works have been included as part of the Arts Council Collection [16] and the collection of The Tate. [17]