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Korean Canadian artist Zadie Xa nominated for Turner Prize 2025

Published: 24 Apr. 2025, 14:21

Zadie Xa [SPACE K SEOUL]

Zadie Xa, a 42-year-old Korean Canadian artist, has been named one of four finalists for the Turner Prize 2025, Britain’s most prestigious contemporary art award.

Tate Britain, which organizes the prize, announced on Wednesday that this year’s shortlist includes Scottish artist Nnenna Kalu, Iraqi-born painter Mohammed Sami, British artist Rene Matić and Xa, who currently lives and works in London.

Xa was nominated for “Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything,” a multisensory installation created with Spanish artist Benito Mayor Vallejo that incorporates painting, mural, textile and sound.

Xa was born and raised in Vancouver and is a second-generation Korean Canadian. She holds a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art in London and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Canada.

Her work draws heavily on Korean folktales and cultural motifs — including figures like Princess Bari and the gumiho (nine-tailed fox) as well as shamanic symbols and jogakbo (traditional Korean patchwork). These themes, Xa has said, stem from childhood stories passed down by her mother.

She has held exhibitions at several major galleries in Britain, including the Hayward Gallery in 2018, the Serpentine Gallery in both 2017 and 2018 and the Whitechapel Gallery in 2023. At Whitechapel, she presented a large-scale textile installation inspired by hanok, or traditional Korean houses.

In Korea, Xa participated in the 2022 Jeju Biennale and held her first solo exhibition in the country at Space K Seoul in 2023.

Established in 1984 and named after the 19th-century landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, the Turner Prize is awarded annually to a British artist or one primarily working in Britain. The 2025 winner will be announced at an award ceremony in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on Dec. 9.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY LEE EUN-JU [[email protected]]