Turner Prize winner 2023 announced in Eastbourne

The winner of the £25,000 prize was declared this evening at a ceremony presented by musician, creative and broadcaster Tinie Tempah at Eastbourne’s Winter Garden, adjacent to Towner Eastbourne, the hosts of this year’s prize.

A spokesman said: “The jury commended all four nominated artists for their distinct and affecting presentations. Together their varied practices, so well represented in their Turner Prize presentations, are grounded in the realities of the world today, often giving voice to themes of uncertainty and vulnerability. Their work brings immediacy to the issues they respond to, realising these themes in powerful and unexpected ways.

“They awarded the prize to Jesse Darling. His recent practice encompasses sculpture, installation, text and drawing. The jury commended his use of materials and commonplace objects like concrete, welded barriers, hazard tape, office files and net curtains, to convey a familiar yet delirious world. Invoking societal breakdown, his presentation unsettles perceived notions of labour, class, Britishness and power.

“One of the best-known visual arts prizes in the world, the Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. The prize is awarded to an artist born or based in the UK, for an outstanding exhibition or presentation of their work in the past twelve months. The shortlisted artists for 2023 were: Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker.”

The members of the Turner Prize 2023 jury are Martin Clark, Director, Camden Art Centre; Cédric Fauq, Chief Curator, Capc musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux; Melanie Keen, Director of Wellcome Collection and Helen Nisbet, CEO and Artistic Director, Cromwell Place. The jury is chaired by Alex Farquharson, Director, Tate Britain.

An exhibition of the four shortlisted artists is at Towner Eastbourne until April 14 2024. It is curated by Noelle Collins, exhibitions and offsite curator at Towner Eastbourne. This year’s prize is presented as part of Towner 100, a year-long celebration of arts and culture across Eastbourne and Sussex marking the centenary of Towner Eastbourne.

Turner Prize 2023 is sponsored by King & McGaw. The education partner is University of Sussex. Turner Prize is supported by Lorna Gradden, Chalk Cliff Trust, The John Browne Charitable Trust and The Uggla Family Foundation. It is also supported in 2023 by Eastbourne Borough Council and East Sussex County Council.

The prize will mark its 40th anniversary next year, returning to Tate Britain for the first time since 2018.

Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is named after the radical British painter JMW Turner (1775-1851). Originating at Tate Britain, every other year the Turner Prize travels to a non-Tate venue in the UK, widening access to contemporary art by bringing it to a local leading arts venue. £25,000 is awarded to the winner, with £10,000 awarded to the other shortlisted artists. In 2024 the prize will return to Tate Britain for its 40th anniversary.

Previous Turner Prize winners are: 1984 Malcolm Morley; 1985 Howard Hodgkin; 1986 Gilbert & George; 1987 Richard Deacon; 1988 Tony Cragg; 1989 Richard Long; 1991 Anish Kapoor; 1992 Grenville Davey; 1993 Rachel Whiteread; 1994 Antony Gormley; 1995 Damien Hirst; 1996 Douglas Gordon; 1997 Gillian Wearing; 1998 Chris Ofili; 1999 Steve McQueen; 2000 Wolfgang Tillmans; 2001 Martin Creed; 2002 Keith Tyson; 2003 Grayson Perry; 2004 Jeremy Deller; 2005 Simon Starling; 2006 Tomma Abts; 2007 Mark Wallinger; 2008 Mark Leckey; 2009 Richard Wright; 2010 Susan Philipsz; 2011 Martin Boyce; 2012 Elizabeth Price; 2013 Laure Prouvost; 2014 Duncan Campbell; 2015 Assemble; 2016 Helen Marten; 2017 Lubaina Himid; 2018 Charlotte Prodger; 2019 Hamdan/Cammock/Murillo/Shani; 2021 Array Collective; 2022 Veronica Ryan.

Jesse Darling was born in Oxford in 1981. Darling studied at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and completed an MFA at Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2014. In 2021, he released his first collection of poetry, Virgins, Monitor Books (Salford, UK). Jesse Darling is 41 and lives and works in Berlin.

Darling works in sculpture, installation, video, drawing, sound, text and performance, using a ‘materialist poetics’ to explore and reimagine the everyday technologies that represent how we live. Darling has often combined industrial materials such as sheet metal and welded steel with everyday objects to explore ideas of the domestic and the institutional, home and state, stability and instability, function and dysfunction, growth and collapse. The acknowledgment of a shared vulnerability inherent in both the individual and the collective body are important considerations in Darling’s practice.