FRUIT Bowl by 52-year-old spinster Mary Fisher is the controversial frontrunner for this year’s Turner Prize.
Fisher works in the unusual medium of paint – a substance more usually associated with interior decoration – rather than conventional materials such as mouldy carpet tiles and bottles of monkey urine.
And instead of being placed up a tree and then verbally abused by two schoolchildren dressed as Herman Goering, the work is hung, using a hooking device, on a wall.
Art critic Julian Cook said: “In a wonderful trompe d’oeil, we see what appears to be fruit in the image, yet it is in no sense real or edible.
“Many gallery visitors have attempted to pick the fruit from the bowl, only to realise it is an ingenious, two dimensional representation.
“By locating her work on the wall, rather than on the floor, she forces the viewer to reconsider notions of periphery and perspective.”
Fisher, who describes her work as ‘relaxing’, has inspired a movement dubbed Neoconceptualism, or ‘paintings of things’ which has dominated this year’s Awards.
Other works up for the prize are an oil rendering of a cat, entitled ‘Cheeky Face’ and a water colour of some cows.
