NNENA KALU
b. 1966, United KingdomNnena Kalu is a Glasgow-born, London-based contemporary artist known for her immersive sculptural installations and vortex-like drawings, whose materially rich practice was recognised with the 2025 Turner Prize for her boldly layered, process-driven artworks. Working with everyday materials that she wraps, binds, and builds into dense forms, Kalu creates rhythmic environments that foreground repetition, colour, and the physical act of making in contemporary art.
Early years and Background
Born in Glasgow to Nigerian parents, Nnena Kalu is neurodivergent and has developed her practice within supported studio environments that prioritise long-term, process-based work. Since 1999 she has worked as a studio artist with ActionSpace at Studio Voltaire in London, where she has established a sustained practice in sculpture and drawing and developed close relationships with curators and galleries championing her work.
Kalu’s experience of working intensively in the studio over years, often on large-scale site-responsive projects, underpins the physical and durational nature of her installations. Her Turner Prize recognition marked a historic moment for visibility of artists with learning disabilities in the institutional art world, signalling a shift in how such practices are framed and supported by museums and galleries.
Nnena Kalu Artworks
Nnena Kalu’s artworks draw on wrapping, knotting, and layering to transform modest materials into sculptural clusters, hanging forms, and works on paper that register movement, time, and repetition. Across installations, sculptures, and drawings, Kalu’s approach emphasises the build-up of lines, loops, and bundles, allowing her artworks to grow incrementally into immersive contemporary art environments.
Sculptural Installations and Wrapping
Kalu’s sculptural practice often begins with simple armatures or tubular forms, which she wraps and binds with layers of tape, fabric, rope, cling film, and other repurposed materials. Over time, these structures accumulate into cocoon-like or boulder-like sculptures that may hang, lean, or cluster on the floor, filling gallery spaces with dense colour and texture.
Recycling and reconfiguration are central: components from earlier works are frequently folded into new installations, so that forms reappear in altered states and exhibitions present her practice as evolving and cyclical rather than fixed. Sound and touch also matter—the friction of wrapping and the crackle of plastic or tape contribute to the live, performative atmosphere surrounding the artworks when they are installed or activated.
Drawings and Works on Paper
Alongside sculpture, Kalu produces drawings that echo the looping, circular rhythms of her installations. Working directly on paper with vivid colours and black, she builds vortex-like compositions by repeatedly tracing and overlaying lines, creating dense fields that record sustained physical engagement with the surface.
These works on paper often accompany or relate to sculptural projects, extending her interest in repetition and gesture into two dimensions. The drawings have been exhibited in gallery contexts as autonomous artworks and as part of wider presentations of Kalu’s sculptural practice.
Select Awards and Accolades
- Turner Prize, Tate, 2025
- Key supported studio residencies and commissions with ActionSpace and Studio Voltaire, London
To be kept up to date with news relating to Nnena Kalu, follow her on Ocula.
Nnena Kalu Exhibitions
Nnena Kalu has been the subject of solo exhibitions and group exhibitions at important contemporary art institutions and galleries in the United Kingdom and internationally. She has exhibited work at the Manifesta art biennale in Barcelona, Spain, and the Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway, and has work in Tate’s collection. She has attracted attention in the art world for achieving that while being autistic and learning disabled with limited verbal communication.
Select solo exhibitions
- Creations of Care, Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway, 2025
- Nnena Kalu, Arcadia Missa, London, 2024
- Nnena Kalu, ROKSANDA, London, 2023
- Infinite Drawing, Deptford X, London, 2022
- Nnena Kalu: Studio Voltaire Elsewhere, Old Burlington Street, London, 2020
- Nnena Kalu: Wrapping, Humber Street Gallery, Hull, 2019
- Nnena Kalu, Glasgow International, Glasgow, 2018
Select group exhibitions
- Frieze London, Arcadia Missa, London, 2025
- Modern and Contemporary British Art: The State We’re In: 2000–Now, Tate Britain, London, 2025
- Turner Prize 2025, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, 2025
- Conversations, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2024
- Frieze London, Arcadia Missa, London, 2024
- Excavation: Macro to the Micro, Vortic (online), 2024
- Manifesta 15, Barcelona Metropolitana, Barcelona, Spain, 2024
- Kaleidoscopic Realms, Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Nottingham, 2024
- Miart 2024, Arcadia Missa, Milan, Italy, 2024
- Tageldimde/Middlegate, Middlegate, Geel, Belgium, 2023
- Trickster Figures: Sculpture and the Body, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, 2023
- Allied Editions, House of Voltaire, Frieze London, London, 2022
- To All the Kings Who Have No Crowns, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2022
- Open House, Studio Voltaire, London, 2021
- Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2021
- Evolving Echoing Entities, Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, 2020
Nnena Kalu FAQs
Who is Nnena Kalu?
Nnena Kalu is a Glasgow-born contemporary artist known for immersive sculptural installations and drawings made from wrapped, layered everyday materials, whose work has been recognised with the 2025 Turner Prize. You can follow Nnena Kalu on Ocula to learn more about her work, find out about art for sale, contact her gallery, and keep up to date with upcoming exhibitions.
Where can I see work by Nnena Kalu?
Work by Nnena Kalu can be seen in exhibitions and projects organised with institutions and galleries including Tate, Studio Voltaire, Humber Street Gallery, and other contemporary art venues. You can follow Nnena Kalu on Ocula to receive alerts on upcoming exhibitions by the artist.
How was Nnena Kalu discovered and supported?
Nnena Kalu was discovered and supported through her long-term involvement with the London-based learning disability arts organisation ActionSpace, which began working with her in the late 1990s and recognised the strength of her studio practice. Through ActionSpace’s partnership with Studio Voltaire and its networks with galleries and institutions, Nnena Kalu gained sustained access to a professional studio, curatorial support, and exhibition opportunities that helped bring her contemporary artworks to an international audience.
For which exhibition did Nnena Kalu win her nomination for the Turner Prize?
Nnena Kalu won the 2025 Turner Prize for her exhibition Creations of Care at Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway, which presented her densely wrapped hanging sculptures and immersive installations. The Turner Prize jury highlighted how this exhibition, together with her wider body of work, demonstrated the ambition, originality, and material intensity that led to her nomination and eventual win.
Where does Nnena Kalu live?
Nnena Kalu lives and works in London, where she maintains a long-term studio practice with ActionSpace at Studio Voltaire.
How is Nnena Kalu’s name pronounced?
Nnena Kalu’s name is commonly pronounced ‘NEH-nah KAH-loo’, with a soft first syllable and emphasis on the first name’s opening sound.
Where can I buy Nnena Kalu’s work?
Nnena Kalu is represented by leading contemporary art galleries and works in partnership with organisations such as ActionSpace and Studio Voltaire. You can get in touch with Ocula’s art advisory team to find out more about buying or selling work by Nnena Kalu.
Ocula | 2025
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