Veronica Ryan becomes the oldest winner of the Turner Prize at 66
The Turner Prize is recognised as one of the most prestigious awards in the UK art world. Ever since its conception, the award has received a lot of publicity because many believe that it urges wider audiences to think more deeply about the contemporary art landscape.
“I think this is the Turner Prize really recognising that artists can have a breakthrough at any moment in their career,” Helen Legg, director of Tate Liverpool and co-chair of the judging panel, commented (via The Art Newspaper). This year, sculptor Veronica Ryan became the oldest recipient of the Turner Prize at 66.
According to Legg, Ryan’s art has “an incredible vitality that has really developed over the last couple of years. A lot of the work she made for the exhibition [at Tate Liverpool] was produced during lockdown, and that experience had been brought to bear.”
The jury declared Ryan was the winner of this year’s edition of the Turner Prize, praising “the personal and poetic way she extends the language of sculpture” and the “noticeable shift in her use of space, colour and scale both in gallery and civic spaces.”
Some media outlets raised questions about the nominees, but presenter Holly Johnson shut those discussions down immediately. Johnson said: “Apparently all the journalists are asking why there are no men on the shortlist: perhaps there were no men good enough!”
