Turner Prize nominations: art at the BALTIC, Gateshead

It is only the second time that the exhibition of works for the Turner Prize artist nominations has been held outside London: this year in Gateshead – across the Tyne River from Newcastle in northeastern England. The venue is the BALTIC, a converted flour mill silo (which deserves another blog on its own). A friend and I went to view the work of the four nominated artists; the exhibition runs from 21 October 2011 to 8 January 2012, but the Prize will be announced next Monday, December 5th, so we were glad to be able to form our own opinions before being told what is best!

Each artist had one exhibit room for their installation. We wrote off two after puzzling over the work:  Hilary Lloyd's non-sensical video presentations which made me feel seasick, and Karen Black's crumpled paper and plastic bag creations in pastel colours (though I must admit that walking behind the crumpled paper "waterfall", as I interpreted it, was kind of neat).

We disagreed on who should win the Prize. My friend went for Martin Boyce's sculpture installation which included a ceiling of vertical plastic fins representing tree leaves, with oiled paper leaf cutouts scattered across the floor; a wall-mounted panel of seemingly poured concrete with the wood-grain mould pattern overlaid by scattered alphabet-like letters; half a library table top carved with similar letters and mounted on a metal frame of odd angles that was twice as big as the wood table top; wall heating vents that used patterns resembling the letters in their grills; and an obliquely tilted red rubbish bin with torn flannel liner. All these things were interesting in themselves, but a BALTIC Crew member had to explain how they hung together: representing a park with indoor items (the table) placed outside. Fine, but when I have to have a work explained to me, I feel that the artist hasn't got his message across very successfully.

I chose the paintings of George Shaw, all small (ca. 30x40cm) and mounted in traditional form around the room walls. These were done with enamel paints, more often used on model cars, and many were somber bordering on dark. His topics were the mundane aspects of his childhood neighbourhood, both remembered, recreated, and in transition to their current state. None included people, but the manner of painting – flat, fairly solid colours – reminded me of Edward Hopper's work and some were equally "bleak", a word Shaw himself used in his interview video. What struck me was the differential effort put into the detail of the pictures: in the painting "New Houses", a row of orangey coloured tract houses on the horizon were backed by indistinct trees, but the entire foreground was a field fenced off for further development. While the houses were painted without architectural detail, great attention was paid to the field's mudpuddles and drying clay, diverting our focus to things we would probably overlook and discount in our daily life.

So, we await the announcement of the Turner Prize on December 5th with hope and trepidation! Go see, to make your own choices...