2024 marks the Turner Prize’s 40th anniversary, and its return to Tate Britain for the first time in six years after touring to other cities around the UK. Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is one of the world’s best-known prizes for the visual arts. Contemporary art is now central to the nation’s cultural life, and the Turner Prize has played an important role in that development.

One of four artists shortlisted for the prestigious 2024 Turner Prize, Pio Abad’s (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in London, England) art explores cultural loss and colonial histories, often reflecting on his upbringing in the Philippines. Featuring drawings, etchings and sculptures that depict and transform artifacts from Oxford museums, Abad highlights their overlooked histories and connections to everyday household items. He was nominated for his solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

For the Turner Prize exhibition, Abad features newly added work like Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite (2019), which reimagines an Imelda Marcos bracelet as a three-meter concrete sculpture, alongside works like I am singing a song that can only be borne after losing a country (2023), a drawing that turns the underside of Powhatan's mantle – a Native American robe in the Ashmolean collection – into an imagined map of colonized lands, and Tat2, a self-portrait photograph overlaid with tattoo-like drawings by pioneering Filipino-American artist Carlos Villa.

Abad’s solo exhibitions include To Those Sitting in Darkness, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2024); Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila (2022); Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, Kadist, San Francisco (2019); Splendour, Oakville Galleries, Ontario (2019); Notes on Decomposition, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); 1975 – 2015, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney and Some Are Smarter Than Others, Gasworks, London (2014). Recent group exhibition include Small World, 13th Taipei Biennial (2023); In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); Things Entangling, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2020); Phantom Limb, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); To Make Wrong/Right/Now, 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Imagined Nations/ Modern Utopias, 12th Gwangju Biennial, Korea (2018). His artworks are held in collections around the world including Tate, UK; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Honolulu; Singapore Art Museum; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai.

He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. He has recently co-curated monographic exhibitions on Pacita Abad at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila and Spike Island, Bristol. He also co-edited the publication Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say in 2021.

Named after the radical painter JMW Turner, the Turner Prize was first awarded in 1984. Each year, it is given to a British artist who has created an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work. A jury shortlists four British artists, or artists based in Britain, for outstanding exhibitions or projects held over the previous year. This year’s artists are Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, and Delaine Le Bas.

The 2024 Turner Prize exhibition runs until 16 February 2025 at Tate Britain.