‘Small city nowhuge’ artist onTurner shortlist

The shortlist for the prize was announced on Thursday (April 25) and features Laure Prouvost, Tino Sehgal, David Shrigley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

The latter - the first black woman to be nominated for the prize - is probably an outsider because she painted pictures of people using oil paints.

And the people of Londonderry have already been treated to the work of Mr Shrigley. He did the ‘Small city becomes huge’ mural in Waterloo Place.

Ms Provoust was nominated for her two-part installation ‘Swallows,’ inspired by the aesthetic and sensuous pleasures of Italy. The work, which features women bathing at a river pool, has already won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. She was also shortlisted for ‘Wantee’ a new work commissioned for inclusion in ‘Schwitters in Britain’ at the Tate - an exhibition in honour of the Dada-inspired German artist Kurt Schwitters, who was thrown in an internment camp when he arrived in Britain in 1940.

Mr Sehgal has been shortlisted for ‘This Variation at documenta (XIII),’ which allows consumers go into a dark room and listen to people shouting and singing and various other sounds.

His work ‘These Associations’ also earned him the nomination for “testing the limits of artistic material and audience perception in a new and significant way.” Mr Shrigley’s solo exhibition at the Hayward Gallery David Shrigley: Brain Activity was also shortlisted.

It is said to have “offered a comprehensive overview and new perspectives on his work. Including not only his well-loved drawings but also photography, sculpture and film, the exhibition revealed his black humour, macabre intelligence and infinite.”

And Ms Yiadom-Boakye’s exhibition ‘Extract and Verses’ is perhaps the most conventional artwork, featuring traditional oil paintings of human beings.

Her “intriguing paintings appear traditional but are in fact much more innovative. Her portraits of imaginary people use invented pre-histories and raise pertinent questions about how we read pictures in general, particularly with regard to black subjects,”