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Vong Phaophanit
Shortlisted: 1993

Phaophanit's art is immediately striking for his use of materials such as rice, rubber, and bamboo, which he combines with a striking use of light. The meanings of his work are inevitably linked to his particular origins and background - Phaophanit was born in Laos, a former French colony - though they are equally related to his life as an artist living in Britain. For the Turner Prize exhibition in 1993 he made a Neon Rice Field, consisting of neon lights which emitted a seductive glow from just beneath the surface of translucent rice grains, arranged in furrows.

Vong Phaophanit was born in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos in 1961. From 1980 to 1985, he was educated in France at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Aix and then he moved to Britain. He was shortlisted for the Prize in 1993 for his installation work shown at the Serpentine Gallery and displayed in the grounds of Killerton Park, in Devon.

This information has been taken from The Turner Prize: Twenty Years, by Virginia Button, Tate Publishing, 2003.