Britain's Turner Prize 2022 shortlist includes whipped cream replica

Four solo artists made the cut this year ahead of the December award ceremony in Liverpool

Sin Wai Kin has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2022. Photo: PA

Four artists commended for their solo exhibitions are competing for the UK's Turner Prize for contemporary art this year, Tate Britain, which organises the award, has announced.

The 2022 shortlist contrasts with last year's line-up, which for the first time had five artist collectives competing for the prestigious, but often controversial British visual arts award.

This year's nominees include Heather Phillipson, best known in Britain for her artwork displayed in London's Trafalgar Square of a giant swirl of replica whipped cream, topped with a sculpted cherry, fly and drone.

Titled The End, it sat for two years from January 2020 on the empty fourth plinth on the world-famous landmark in the centre of the British capital.

Phillipson, who works in video, sculpture and drawing, was nominated for that work and a solo exhibition — Rupture No 1: blowtorching the bitten peach — at Tate Britain.

The prize's jury "applauded the audacious and sophisticated way Phillipson splices absurdity, tragedy and imagination to probe urgent and complex ideas", the museum said.

Among the contenders is Toronto-born, London-based artist Sin Wai Kin — formerly known as Victoria Sin, who identifies as non-binary. She is nominated in part for a solo show at Hong Kong's Blindspot Gallery.

"Drawing on their own experience existing between binary categories, their work realises fictional narratives to describe lived realities of desire, identification, and consciousness," Tate Britain said.

Ingrid Pollard, who works primarily in photography, but also sculpture, film and sound, was nominated for her exhibition Carbon Slowly Turning in Milton Keynes, central England.

"Pollard's work questions our relationship with the natural world and interrogates ideas such as Britishness, race and sexuality," the organisers of the award said.

The jury also selected Veronica Ryan, a Montserrat-born British sculptor, for two UK showcases of her "sculptural objects and installations using containers, compartments, and combinations of natural and fabricated forms".

Alex Farquharson, Tate Britain's director and co-chair of the prize jury, said galleries and museums reopening last year after pandemic lockdowns had led to "a terrific 12 months" for contemporary British art.

"Art has provided much-needed enjoyment and escape over the past year, but it has also helped to reconnect us with each other and the world around us, as the practices of the four shortlisted artists variously exemplify," he said.

The Turner winner — to be announced at an award ceremony in Liverpool, north-west England, in December — will scoop $30,000 and the other nominees will each receive about $13,000.

An exhibition of their works will be held at Tate Liverpool from October 20 to March 19, 2023.

Over the years, the prize has courted headlines because of installations including an unmade bed and works made from elephant dung and human hair.

In 2019, the four shortlisted artists sent a plea to judges to award the prize to them all jointly, explaining they had formed a collective to show solidarity at a time of global "political crisis", including Brexit.