Veronica Ryan, who created the UK’s first permanent artwork to honour the Windrush generation, has won the 2022 Turner prize, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for visual arts.

Ryan, 66, becomes the oldest artist to win the prize. She was nominated for the Windrush sculpture, which was unveiled in Hackney, London, last year, and for her solo exhibition Along a Spectrum at Spike Island, Bristol.

Ryan – who received an OBE last year – was born in Plymouth, Montserrat and came to the UK as a child in the 1950s. She creates sculptural objects and installations using containers, compartments and combinations of natural and fabricated forms to reference themes such as displacement, fragmentation, alienation and loss.

Veronica Ryan OBE, Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae), and Soursop (Annonaceae), 2021. Commissioned by Hackney Council; curated and produced by Create London. Photo: Andy Keate. Courtesy the artist, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and Alison Jacques, London.
Veronica Ryan is a sensational choice as Turner prize-winner
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The jury awarded the prize for the “personal and poetic way she extends the language of sculpture”. They also praised the noticeable shift in her use of space, colour and scale both in gallery and civic spaces.

Collecting the award, Ryan thanked her family. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’m wearing my dad’s hat, my dad would be so pleased, he called me big eyes when I was little. That’s fabulous. Thank you mummy and daddy. All my family. My family are here. My siblings.

“And to my siblings that didn’t survive. And I’m going to name them: Patricia, Josephine, David. They were fantastic people. And I think they’re looking at us right now. And they’re proud. And I want to thank everybody.

“I have a few people who in my career have looked out for me, when I wasn’t visible. When I collected rubbish. I collected rubbish for a number of years. But actually, some of the rubbish is some of the most important works I think.

“Thank you to the other artists. It’s a fantastic installation. We’ve all – everyone has made fantastic work. I just want to say thank you to everyone this is wonderful.”

Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain and co-chair of the jury, said Ryan was “a sculptor taking the language of sculpture and extending it in new directions”. “She has a long career going back to the 80s and it’s interesting to see that evolution but also this flourishing now,” he said.

He said the jury was highly impressed with the turns Ryan’s work had taken in the last couple of years and paid tribute to the “subtle poetics” in her work.

“It’s slow-burn work. What becomes evident is this elusive treatment of themes of survival, care and she’s even used the word trauma. The valuing of things, the remembering of things. It’s about nature and lived experience,” he said.

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