Turner Prize shortlist includes art showcasing Scottish Sikh community

A Scottish artist who uses cars, worship bells and Irn-Bru in her work is among the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize.

Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur’s work reflects her life growing up in the city’s Sikh community.

She is up for the prestigious art award, now in its 40th year, alongside Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas.

Turner Prize jury chairman Alex Farquharson described it as a “fantastic shortlist of artists”

Works by the nominated artists will go on show at London’s Tate Britain gallery from 25 September.

They will receive £10,000 each, while the winner, to be announced on 3 December, will get £25,000.

In a statement, Farquharson said: “All four make work that is full of life.

“They show how contemporary art can fascinate, surprise and move us, and how it can speak powerfully of complex identities and memories, often through the subtlest of details.

“In the Turner Prize’s 40th year, this shortlist proves that British artistic talent is as rich and vibrant as ever.”

The shortlisted artists are:

Pio Abad

Manila-born Abad’s solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford included drawings, etchings and sculptures that combined to “ask questions of museums”, according to the jury.

The 40-year-old, who works in London, reflects on colonial history and growing up in the Philippines, where his parents struggled against authoritarianism.

The title of his exhibit is a nod to Mark Twain’s 1901 essay To the Person Sitting In Darkness, which hit out at imperialism.

Jasleen Kaur

Kaur is on the list for Alter Altar at Tramway, Glasgow, which included family photos, an Axminster carpet, a classic Ford Escort covered in a giant doily, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells.

The 37-year-old, who lives in London, had previously showcased her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum by looking at popular Indian cinema.

Delaine Le Bas

Worthing-born Le Bas is nominated for an exhibition titled Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning. Staged at the Secession art institute in Vienna, Austria, it saw painted fabrics hung, with theatrical costumes and sculptures also part of the exhibit.

The 58-year-old artist was inspired by the death of her grandmother and the history of the Roma people.

The jury said they “were impressed by the energy and immediacy present in this exhibition, and its powerful expression of making art in a time of chaos”.

Claudette Johnson

Manchester-born Johnson has been given the nod for her solo exhibition Presence at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and Drawn Out at Ortuzar Projects, New York.

She uses portraits of black women and men in a combination of pastels, gouache and watercolour, and was praised by the judges for her “sensitive and dramatic use of line, colour, space and scale to express empathy and intimacy with her subjects”.

Johnson, 65, was appointed an MBE in 2022 after being named on the New Year Honours list for her services to the arts.