The Turner Prize at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery

If you’re wondering what’s happening in contemporary visual art, the Turner Prize is an excellent chance to see a snapshot of today’s art scene. The UK’s most important visual art prize is taking place in Bradford this year, as part of the 2025 Bradford City of Culture celebrations.

This year’s edition is a very special one too – the shortlisted artists were announced on 23 April 2025, exactly 250 years to the day since the birth of JWM Turner. The works of Nnena Kalu, Rene Matić, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa will be displayed in the Turner Prize exhibition at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, and one winner will be announced on 9 December 2025.

Let’s take a look at each of the shortlisted artists.

Zadie Xa is a multimedia artist who draws on her own heritage, familial legacies and science fiction to create new worlds. Her works combine painting, textiles, sculpture and other elements, often made in collaboration with other creatives. The artists treats each exhibition as an installation, with every painting and sculpture becoming part of a greater whole. Spirituality and folklore are recurring motifs in the narratives she creates, populated with fantasy animals and mythological beings.

Mohammed Sami describes himself as a painter of ‘belated memories’ where metaphors and ambiguity seep through the scenes of everyday objects: washing lines, patterned rugs and shadows. Sami was born in Iraq and lived through 23 years of conflict before emigrating to Europe, the memories of which are now translated into seemingly innocent interiors and still lives with suggestive titles. Despite the use of veiled metaphors, these paintings can be instinctively understood, with exquisite colour and composition all working together to create a very particular, unsettling mood.

Nnena Kalu’s works are rooted in repetition with two strands: drawings and 3D installations. The two-dimensional works are often circular shapes resembling vortices in layered marks and are often created in pairs. The sculptural works are tightly packed ‘cocoons’ and large-scale bundles made from multiple layers of cellophane and colourful tape.

Rene Matić’s work interrogates ‘Britishness’, often in the form of photography. They describe the concept of “rude(ness)” as a key driver behind the work, one that encompasses the idea of interruption and in-between existence, particularly in relation to the mixed-race experience. They are interested in subcultures and their shifting roles, photography as a means of creating a personal archive, and capturing love in all its guises.

Don’t miss this unique chance to see some of the most intriguing visual art of today, exhibited in this year’s City of Culture.