At first glance, the four artists nominated for the 2025 Turner Prize are strikingly different. The Turner Prize aims to celebrate and debate new developments in contemporary art in Britain; if Nnena Kalu, René Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa tell us anything about art right now, it is that it spans continents, materials, approaches, generations, genders, thought processes, narratives and subjects. 

Co-curator Michael Richmond affirms this idea. “I think the nominees this year really speak to the strength and diversity within British art right now,” he says. “I think all four artists are speaking to the world in which we’re living. Whether that’s René and their dealing with themes around identity and society, or Mohammed dealing with conflict and warfare, which unfortunately we see around the world.”

But, delve a little deeper – or stand in the midst of Xa’s hypnotic four-channel sound installation – and connections begin to form. Both Xa and Matić are searching for a sense of belonging; it is just that Xa is reaching out to her ancestors, while Matić is capturing the community around them. Kalu’s bulging, wrapped sculptures respond to the space, while Xa’s reflective floor and paint-drenched walls create a space – both immersing audiences in mesmerising dreamscapes. Meanwhile, Sami and Matić face up to the lingering presence of violence and society’s collective response to it. 

Whether contradictory or cohesive, the Turner Prize exhibition at Cartwright Hall in Bradford leaves plenty to consider. Below, we showcase the four nominated artists. 

MOHAMMED SAMI

“The power of the painting lies in evoking the presence of what is not shown,” says Mohammed Sami of his large-scale paintings that appear to capture the moment immediately after violence. A field of sunflowers is trampled by muddy hooves, a cloud of ash and smoke swirls above an array of smashed crockery, the remnants of clothing float in the ocean. There are clues in the titles – Massacre, White Flash/Dark Materials and Hiroshima Mon Amour, respectively – but Sami says he relies on “collective memory” to allow the viewer to tell their own story.  

Nominated for his solo show, After the Storm, which exhibited at Blenheim Palace, Sami uses ambiguity to demonstrate how historical events and memories are rarely fixed but heavily influenced by subjective opinions, emotions and perceptions. Blenheim Palace was built in the 18th century to reward the military triumphs of the first Duke of Marlborough; consequently, the palace hosts art that glorifies warfare and power. Sami’s powerfully quiet pieces challenge this, revealing what conflict leaves behind while questioning how we subconsciously absorb narratives. Fundamentally, Sami explains, his paintings become “mirrors for the audience’s perception and that’s why the paintings need to be timeless”.

RENE MATIĆ

In the centre of Rene Matić’s exhibition As Opposed to the Truth, (first shown at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Berlin) is a large, drooping flag that reads “No place/ For violence”. Around the room are photographs of people kissing, a baby breastfeeding, bouquets of flowers, friends laughing, graffiti that reads “unite or perish”. Above our heads, the sound installation 365 plays church bells, Rihanna singing Lift Me Up a cappella, and chants of “Free Palestine”. Even several discarded antique Black dolls have found a home again, collected by Matić and neatly placed together on a shelf. 

The work is vibrant, hopeful and full of love, but it was created amid a backdrop of right-wing populism, violence and political hypocrisy. Matić’s interest in the seemingly contradictory elements of society came from an appreciation of their own family. Matić explains: “The kind of obsession with understanding Britishness – or not understanding it – came from my love for skinhead subculture. My dad is a Black skinhead and that became his culture and therefore my culture. I think as someone in this in-betweeness. And for me, the skinheads were that because they were born of a mixed marriage between white working-class people and West Indian people.” 

NNENA KALU

Hanging from the ornate ceiling of Cartwright Hall is a winding structure that fills the space. An explosion of rainbow streamers, tape, string, video cassette tape, ribbons, cardboard, fabric, and miscellaneous materials is wrapped around and around the sculpture, and affixed to the wooden wall panels are energetic, spiralled drawings that further enhance the joyous atmosphere Nnena Kalu has created.

Kalu was nominated for the inclusion of Drawing 21 in a group exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and her works Hanging Sculpture 1-10 at Manifesta 15; she has recreated the sculpture specifically in response to the space in Bradford. To create her bulbous forms, Kalu begins with a loop or a base structure and wraps, folds and knots an array of fabrics until the pieces take on a life of their own, twisting into the air with a frenetic energy. 

An autistic, learning-disabled artist with limited verbal communication, Kalu has been supported by ActionSpace since 1999. Shelley Davies, Artist Facilitator at ActionSpace, says: “I always think of Nnena’s practice as working to her own innate rhythm. Whether it’s wrapping, whether it’s knotting, whether it’s drawing. It is always to the same rhythm. It’s like listening to the sound of the sea going in and out. It’s so beautiful seeing Nnena being in her element.” 

ZADIE XA

“I think of myself as an installation artist,” says Zadie Xa, who has been nominated for Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything, which originally appeared at Sharjah Biennial 16, United Arab Emirates. Xa has constructed an immersive world for Cartwright Hall; the reflective floor is a shimmering gold, the wall is a blend of bold colours, bells cascade from the ceiling and soothing music emanates from large hanging shells. Spirals emerge from paintings, a central sculpture and the position of the bells, creating a hypnotic sense of peace. 

“For a long time, I have been really interested in marine life and deep ocean,” explains Xa. “Just like how I have been interested in deep space because these are landscapes that a lot of us are familiar with or we feel like we intimately know, but many of us have never actually physically been in those spaces. Because of that we are able to project a lot of our own imaginations and longings and desires onto those places.” Blending painting, sound, sculpture and textiles, Xa utilises the imagery of these “familiar” spaces, drawing on natural shapes and blending them with the surreal to build a world that feels new and full of possibility.

Explore the Turner Prize 2025 exhibition at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford from 27 September 2025 to 22 February 2026. Admission is free.