A Macclesfield artist has been nominated for one of the country’s most prestigious contemporary art awards.
Helen Marten, 30, is following in the footsteps of Damien Hurst, Grayson Perry and Steve McQueen after being shortlisted for the Turner prize.
Helen went to King’s School until 2004 when she moved to London where she has found success as a painter and sculptor, has also been nominated for the Hepworth prize, a new British sculpture gong.
Her work, Limpet Apology, is up against entries from Michael Dean, Anthea Hamilton and Josephine Pryde for the Turner Prize, and the winner will be announced on December 6 after an exhibition of all of their works.
Helen, who featured in the Macclesfield Express in 2003 when she and her sister Kate spoke about a planned trip to Mongolia, is shortlisted for a show called Eucalyptus Let Us In at Green Natfali in New York and a project entitled Lunar Nibs at the 56th Venice Biennale.
She is known for her sculptures but she also creates tableaux and likes to use a range of found objects to make her works.
The Tate described her art is “slippery and elusive in both form and meaning: it attracts and intrigues while also resisting interpretation and categorisation”.
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After leaving King’s Helen studied art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London and then the Ruskin School of Fine Art at University of Oxford.
In 2012 she won the LUMA Prize and has had solo exhibitions in America and London.
Her eclectic output has included a polystyrene Tintin frozen mid-dash, and a delicate wooden wall sculpture garnished with an air freshener.
For the Hepworth prize Helen could walk away with a £25,000 if she wins.
King’s Head of Art, Debbie Inman, who taught Helen for Art A Level, said: “This is such brilliant news and such a well-deserved recognition of one of school’s and the UK’s brightest talents.
“Helen has achieved international recognition with her exhibitions in New York and Europe and has recently also been nominated for the Hepworth art prize. Everyone at King’s is very excited by this news.”
Helen is the second former King’s pupil to be nominated for The Turner Prize, following in the footsteps of former pupil Ian Davenport who was nominated in 1991.
