Turner Prize 2025: The full nominees revealed
Tate has announced the four shortlisted artists for the 2025 Turner Prize, the UK’s most highly publicised and well-known art award, now in its 41st edition. The shortlisted artists are Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa.
Nnena Kalu creates cocoon-like shapes from paper and textiles, which are then bound, layered and wrapped in brightly coloured cellophane and tape. This results in considered and lively hanging sculptural installations. The jury commended her unique command of material, colour and gesture and her expressive responses to architectural space.
Rene Matić is nominated for the solo exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH at CCA Berlin. Their work includes highly personal photographs of loved ones in stacked frames paired with sound, banners, and installation. They dive deep into belonging and identity, capturing expressions of tenderness within a wider political context.
Mohammed Sami is nominated for his solo exhibition After the Storm at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Sami is best known for his large-scale paintings exploring memory and loss. He draws on his life in Baghdad during the Iraq War and as a refugee in Sweden. He depicts empty landscapes, interiors, and furniture as metaphors for absent bodies and the dream-like fervour of memory amid exile.
Korean Canadian artist Zadie Xa, who is based in London, is nominated for her presentation Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything with Benito Mayor Vallejo at Sharjah Biennial 16. Xa’s works interweave painting, murals, textiles, and sound. She focuses on the sea as a spiritual realm to explore traditions and folklore.
The shortlisted work will be exhibited at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford from September 27th, 2025, through February 22nd, 2026. The winner of the £25,000 prize will be revealed at a ceremony in Bradford on December 9th. The three other shortlisted artists will each receive £10,000.
The Turner Prize made news last year when the previous winner, Jasleen Kaur, used her acceptance speech to advocate for the people of Palestine. Outside of the ceremony, protesters gathered, urging the Tate to cut ties with organisations implicit in the conflict in Palestine. “I want the institution to understand that if you want us inside, you need to listen to us outside,” Kaur had said.
