Nnena Kalu's embodied, sensuous art makes her a worthy Turner prize winner

"Nnena Kalu's forms come at you with their almost alien unknowable presence. They bulge and bifurcate and multiply. The viewer gets caught up in all the roaring, spilling, snaggling details, and you begin to wonder about your own boundaries, the body's beginnings and its endings. The closer you get to Kalu's endless sinewy trails of old VHS tape, their spews of filigree plastic webbing, their bound-up, sometimes cable-tied suturings, the harder it is to know where their forms stop and the space around them begins."

"So full of life and energy, you think they might burst. Kalu's art is so embodied, so sensuous, so much a trace of her constant, physical engagement, so much a negotiation between the body that made it and the bodies she creates, it becomes difficult to distinguish between the activity of making and the thing itself. This was true, too, in the figures Giacometti made in his room filled with plaster dust."

"As I wrote when I reviewed this year's Turner prize exhibition, there is a horizon to what we can know: Kalu's work has to speak for itself. We are left with the facts that Kalu is autistic, has learning disabilities, and limited verbal communication. All art is about overcoming difficulty in one way or another, in order to find a voice. Hers is a constant flux between objects and space, herself and others, and the boundaries that contain us."

Nnena Kalu produces sprawling, almost alien forms that bulge, bifurcate, and multiply, often built from old VHS tape and filigree plastic webbing. The works present precarious containment, bound up with cable ties and suturings, and convey intense life and energy that seem on the verge of bursting. The practice is deeply embodied and sensuous, reflecting constant physical engagement and a negotiation between the body that made the work and the bodies depicted. Drawings rely on spiralling, repetitive marks and overdrawn layers that build through cumulative adjustments. Kalu is autistic, has learning disabilities, and limited verbal communication.

Read at www.theguardian.com