Nathaniel Mellors, in partnership with the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, won the Contemporary Art Society's Annual Award in 2014. Mellors created a film that forms the centrepiece of a 15-month exhibition on the themes of Samuel Beckett and The Theatre of the Absurd.
The £40,000 prize, generously supported by the Sfumato Foundation, is one of the country’s highest value contemporary art awards and in 2014 was presented by Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed.
Mellors made a hybrid work of fiction, sculpture, performance and film, using the architecturally monumental, brutalist Preston Bus Station as its focus. The Bus Station was Grade II listed and this, as well as the compact and architecturally diverse city centre of Preston, makes for an ideal film set.
His current practice and this film commission are part of Mellor’s ongoing Ourhouse body of works, produced by NOMAD, which has featured a panoply of British acting talent including Richard Bremmer (Control, Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone), Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Patrick Kennedy (Atonement, Boardwalk Empire), David Birkin (Sylvia, Les Miserables) and Johnny Vivash (Perdition County, Vigilante) as well as local performers in supporting roles.
