Ariadne Wrapped Maquette

Ariadne (Wrapped Waste)

Ariadne

Public Sculpture

Waterfall Drawing

Coloured pencil on paperPrint of font

Coloured pencil on paperPrint of font

Work on paper

Yellow and Black

Acrylic on canvas with string

Eggs

Painting

The Big T

Glass and mixed media

Tons De Fonts

Lithograph with lightfast marker pen

Tons de Fonds

Transit Disaster Black on Pink

Silkscreen ink on Heritage paper

Silkscreen

Transit Disaster Red on Yellow

Transit

Warhol

Playing on the relationship between his surname and the country Turkey, Evil Eye is an appropriation of a national Turkish talisman. A coloured glass ornament the size of a pendant, the Turkish evil eye is based on the superstition that it can be used to deflect negative feelings, especially those of jealousy – the colour blue being representative of evil for this brown-eyed nation. The premise of the evil eye is based on a belief in the power of the gaze. As if simply looking or being looked at could irreversibly change a person’s fortune. It implies the uneasy relationship between the subject (the eye) and the object (the eyed). Except in this painting by Turk, the object is the eye and the subject the viewer, bringing into question, who is cursing who? Made with pouring paint, rather than glass, the symbol of the evil eye also looks like a Pop Art target, which could be taken to reverse the evil eye’s meaning.

Turkish Eye

Poured acrylic paint on tondo canvas 

Eyes

Playing on the relationship between his surname and the country Turkey, Evil Eye is an appropriation of a national Turkish talisman. A coloured glass ornament the size of a pendant, the Turkish evil eye is based on the superstition that it can be used to deflect negative feelings, especially those of jealousy – the colour blue being representative of evil for this brown-eyed nation. The premise of the evil eye is based on a belief in the power of the gaze. As if simply looking or being looked at could irreversibly change a person’s fortune.

Two Metaphysical Eggs

Acrylic paint and diamond dust on canvas

The artist has referred to this work as part of a series of work known as the ‘Prometheus Series’, referring to this most elusive, heroic and abject of the Greek myths. Prometheus was the god who gave Humans the gift of fire that he stole from Mount Olympus to give to his Shelleyan Protégées.  For the well meaning and philanthropic opening of this particular Pandora’s box our hero was punished by the most gruesome of mortal punishments on an immortal daily basis. On first glance the work appears, like a gemstone, tantalising the intellect like the visual illusions of Larry Bell or Dan Graham. But through the diachronic shimmer and reflections emerge a carefully placed tableaux: the detritus of our manic consumer age. These collections of the rusted, deteriorated evidence of our contemporary world have a totem like aura, trapped as they are behind glass. The icons of our secular age now worshipped like the religious relics of the Catholics, the shrines of the Greco-Romans or the talismans and totems of the indigenous ancients. Gavin Turk, June 2017

VXACT

The artist has referred to this work as part of a series of work known as the ‘Prometheus Series’, referring to this most elusive, heroic and abject of the Greek myths. Prometheus was the god who gave Humans the gift of fire that he stole from Mount Olympus to give to his Shelleyan Protégées.  For the well meaning and philanthropic opening of this particular Pandora’s box our hero was punished by the most gruesome of mortal punishments on an immortal daily basis. On first glance the work appears, like a gemstone, tantalising the intellect like the visual illusions of Larry Bell or Dan Graham. But through the diachronic shimmer and reflections emerge a carefully placed tableaux: the detritus of our manic consumer age. These collections of the rusted, deteriorated evidence of our contemporary world have a totem like aura, trapped as they are behind glass. The icons of our secular age now worshipped like the religious relics of the Catholics, the shrines of the Greco-Romans or the talismans and totems of the indigenous ancients. Gavin Turk, June 2017

Waste

Sculpture

The artist has referred to this work as part of a series of work known as the ‘Prometheus Series’, referring to this most elusive, heroic and abject of the Greek myths.

Solar Egg

Chalk and blackboard paint on canvas

PTERO

Scarlet Geometry

Alchemy

Small Copper Holy Egg

Polished copper on birch plywood

Painted bronze

Doors

Painted Bronze

Small Door (Green & Red) 

This work is an artists impression of a life sized door sculpture.

This work is an artists impression of a life sized door sculpture. 

Small Door (Mauve & Pale Blue) 

This work is an artists impression of a life sized door sculpture. The baseplate can be adapted to requirements such as being set in the ground.

This work is an artists impression of a life sized door sculpture. The baseplate can be adapted to requirements such as being set in the ground.

Small Door (Mint & Lime Green) 

Pink and Green

Small Door (Mustard Yellow)

Pink Grid

Small Pale Blue on Yellow

Pink on Red

Small Red on Blue

Pistoletto's Trash

Screenprint on mirror finish stainless steel

Small Yellow on White

Portrait of the Sailor Gentleman Jim (Wrapped Waste)

Objective Subjective Object

Ich Macht Mich 

Oil and acrylic on canvas

An appropriation of Lucio Fontana's "Fine di Dio" (The End of God), this egg-shaped painting is dramatically perforated, its rich metallic surface vandalized as Gavin Turk's initials are subtly cast by the punctured holes, revealing the empty space behind the copper face whilst remitting the painting to a three-dimensional object. The egg, as a heavily charged archetypal sign brings-up notions of beginning and end, the alpha and omega of all things, a closed loop, that which is before speech and thought, the inaccessible unknown. The punctures on the surface allude to Jesus Christ's stigmata. Titled "Holy Egg", this series of works plays with notions of the authenticity of art as well as the aura of the artwork, alluding to the religious symbolism associated with the egg as well as to a long-standing historical relationship between art and religion, iconography and iconoclasm.

Holy Egg (Small Dotty Copper)

Patinated copper on birch ply stretcher

An appropriation of Lucio Fontana's "Fine di Dio" (The End of God), this egg-shaped painting is dramatically perforated, its rich metallic surface vandalized as Gavin Turk's initials are subtly cast by the punctured holes, revealing the empty space behind the copper face whilst remitting the painting to a three-dimensional object. The egg, as a heavily charged archetypal sign brings-up notions of beginning and end, the alpha and omega of all things, a closed loop, that which is before speech and thought, the inaccessible unknown. The punctures on the surface allude to Jesus Christ's stigmata. Titled "Holy Egg", this series of works plays with notions of the authenticity of art as well as the aura of the artwork, alluding to the religious symbolism associated with the egg as well as to a long-standing historical relationship between art and religion, iconography and iconoclasm.

An appropriation of Lucio Fontana's "Fine di Dio" (The End of God), this egg-shaped painting is dramatically perforated, its rich metallic surface vandalized as Gavin Turk's initials are subtly cast by the punctured holes, revealing the empty space behind the copper face whilst remitting the painting to a three-dimensional object. The egg, as a heavily charged archetypal sign brings-up notions of beginning and end, the alpha and omega of all things, a closed loop, that which is before speech and thought, the inaccessible unknown.