Helen Marten scooped the inaugural £30,000 Hepworth Prize for Sculpture at a ceremony in Wakefield last week.
The prize, which was created to mark this year’s fifth anniversary of the opening of Hepworth Wakefield, recognises a British or UK-based artist of any age, at any stage in their career, who has made a significant contribution to the development of
contemporary sculpture.
“Helen Marten is one of the strongest and most singular voices working in British art today,” said Simon Wallis, the director of the Hepworth Wakefield and chair of the judging panel.
“We believe that Marten is a fitting winner of the inaugural Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, which celebrates the legacy of one of Britain’s finest sculptors.”
Marten, who was born in 1985 in Macclesfield, studied at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, University of London and at Central Saint Martins in London. She has been shortlisted for the 2016 Turner Prize.
Highlighting the subjectivity of artistic appreciation, she is proposing to share the prize with the other artists on the shortlist: Phyllida Barlow, Steven Claydon, and David Medalla.
The other members of the judging panel were: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino; architect David Chipperfield; Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, president Sharjah Art Foundation; Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, president of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo; and art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke.
The prize, which was created to mark this year’s fifth anniversary of the opening of Hepworth Wakefield, recognises a British or UK-based artist of any age, at any stage in their career, who has made a significant contribution to the development of
contemporary sculpture.
“Helen Marten is one of the strongest and most singular voices working in British art today,” said Simon Wallis, the director of the Hepworth Wakefield and chair of the judging panel.
“We believe that Marten is a fitting winner of the inaugural Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, which celebrates the legacy of one of Britain’s finest sculptors.”
Marten, who was born in 1985 in Macclesfield, studied at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, University of London and at Central Saint Martins in London. She has been shortlisted for the 2016 Turner Prize.
Highlighting the subjectivity of artistic appreciation, she is proposing to share the prize with the other artists on the shortlist: Phyllida Barlow, Steven Claydon, and David Medalla.
The other members of the judging panel were: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino; architect David Chipperfield; Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, president Sharjah Art Foundation; Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, president of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo; and art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke.
