Blackheath art duo Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro have won this year’s Sulman Prize with their depiction of the fight between the warrior Raiko and the demon Shuten-dji.

The pair said they were “really surprised and humbled” at the award.

“We are not usually known as painters. We approached this work in the same way we approach our sculptures: we let the materiality of the work speak for itself.

“Our work used an army surplus Vietnam war era helicopter fuselage and reverse engineered it into a kite.

“One of the ideas we were thinking about while painting was the militarisation of objects of spectacle: fireworks to bullets, kites to warplanes, social media to insurrection. Why is it that objects of wonderment become the means of our own subjugation? It seems that we are the ones being bamboozled.”

They said the exhibition was “awesome, vibrant, funny and thought provoking… The energy and zest of the show is the perfect tonic for the rubbish few years that we have all had.”