UCLAN Lecturer Shortlisted For Turner Prize

Jun, 22 2017

~Since 1984 the artistic world has been officially celebrated and honoured for those that have contributed some excellent pieces on a thematic project or in a unique exhibition.

Simply known as ‘The Turner Prize’, it seeks to accolade British artists who have created works that are considered outstanding and worthy of an award.

Previous winners include :- Damien Hurst, Antony Gormley and Grayson Perry. This years winner’s work takes into account the previous 12 months from April 24th 2017.

There are noteworthy nominations for this years Turner Prize, a UCLAN art lecturer  is one Preston based people are really rooting for.

Lubaina Himid is a Zanzibar born artist whose work centres on black British art. As an MBE she also becomes the oldest person to be nominated, making her 62 years old but having made the grade thirty years previously.

She made her name in the 1980s as one of the leaders of the black arts movement in Britain. Her work includes paintings, drawings and installations that make reference to the African diaspora and to the slave industry.

The Preston based professor was shortlisted for her solo exhibitions in Oxford, which brought together a wide range of her paintings, sculptures, ceramics from the 1980s to the present day, and Bristol, which highlighted 100 colourful figures of 17th century African slave servants brought to Europe, as well as her participation in a group exhibition in Nottingham.

Here, she expresses how her black heritage is still relevant today,

“I’m making a space where other black audiences can feel at home, where they can look at these cut outs and think that looks a bit like my auntie or that’s kind of got the demeanour I’ve got or it’s like being home and being amongst people you know. It’s making a space in an art gallery where you are not the only person of colour.”

She is an artist who has developed her work through painting, installation, drawing and printmaking. Old and new work together and her work continues to deepen peoples perspective of black culture.

Lubaina is one of four UK based people short listed for the £25,000 prize. She is up against other credible artists including, Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Buttner and Rosalind Nashashibi.

The work of the nominees will be on display at the Turner Prize exhibition 2017 in Ferens Art Gallery, in Hull, as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations.

The exhibition is expected to run from 26th September 2017 - 7th January 2018. The winner will be announced on 5 December at an award ceremony which will be broadcast live on the BBC.

^Alex Ashworth