Helen Marten
Turner Prize 2016 winner Helen Marten pictured with her work Brood and Bitter Pass 2015 at Tate Britain

Tate Photography

Ruskin graduate Helen Marten wins Turner Prize

Artist Helen Marten, who did her undergraduate degree at Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art and studied at Exeter College from 2005 to 2008, has won the 2016 Turner Prize.

The prestigious prize is awarded to a British artist, under the age of 50, considered to have put on the best exhibition of the past year.

Professor Brian Catling, Head of the Ruskin School of Art, taught Helen while she studied here.

He said: 'We are all tremendously excited by the news of Helen’s success, but not remotely surprised. Helen showed a distinctive talent at the Ruskin, and an exceptional energy in putting her ideas into practice.

'She was one of the leaders of her year. There is no doubt she will go on to have a brilliant career as an artist.'

At 31, Helen Marten was the youngest nominee for this year’s prize. She said she would share the £25,000 prize with other nominees.

Earlier this month, she also won the inaugural Hepworth Prize.

The chair of judges, Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, said: ‘The judges were impressed by the complexity of the work, its amazing formal qualities, its disparate materials and techniques and also how it relates to the world ... how it often suggests meaning, but those meanings are all in flux somehow. One image, one form becomes another.’

Her work is now on display at the Tate Britain.