The title, "Sayonara," suggests a farewell, a bittersweet adieu to the year just past. Turk invites us to bid farewell to the tumultuous year 2022, allowing us to reflect on the collective experiences that shaped the world during that time. Through his artistic lens, the artist captures the essence of an entire year in a haunting and symbolic manner.

Sayonara

Oil and acrylic on canvas

The title, "Sayonara," suggests a farewell, a bittersweet adieu to the year just past. Turk invites us to bid farewell to the tumultuous year 2022, allowing us to reflect on the collective experiences that shaped the world during that time. Through his artistic lens, the artist captures the essence of an entire year in a haunting and symbolic manner.

Fate

Signs

The End

Painting

Gavin Turk was commissioned by Opera Erratica to design the set of a three-part opera piece titled Triptych.This original opera consists of three seemingly unrelated plays, composed by Chris Mayo, Thomas Smetryns and Christian Mason, with librettos by Orlando Wells and Patrick Eakin Young. Here, a selection of Gavin Turk's artworks are reproduced in a trompe l'oeil fashion as a simulation of the artist's exhibition, and reinserted into the context of the stage. In relation to Turk's oeuvre this presentation effects a double-distancing (a simulacrum of the simulacrum), or mise en abîme i.e a technique in which an image contains a smaller copy of itself. The stage becomes an apt conceptual space for themes of representation, reproduction and recomposition - and also for the deconstruction of these themes. As a back-drop it prevents each play from sitting too comfortably on itself, acting as a doubly false setting that occasionally reverts into the real setting as the characters' roles shift and return to their original stance.

Triptych

Paint on canvas and wood

Gavin Turk was commissioned by Opera Erratica to design the set of a three-part opera piece titled Triptych.This original opera consists of three seemingly unrelated plays, composed by Chris Mayo, Thomas Smetryns and Christian Mason, with librettos by Orlando Wells and Patrick Eakin Young. Here, a selection of Gavin Turk's artworks are reproduced in a trompe l'oeil fashion as a simulation of the artist's exhibition, and reinserted into the context of the stage. In relation to Turk's oeuvre this presentation effects a double-distancing (a simulacrum of the simulacrum), or mise en abîme i.e a technique in which an image contains a smaller copy of itself. The stage becomes an apt conceptual space for themes of representation, reproduction and recomposition - and also for the deconstruction of these themes. As a back-drop it prevents each play from sitting too comfortably on itself, acting as a doubly false setting that occasionally reverts into the real setting as the characters' roles shift and return to their original stance.

Art History

Recycling

Performance

Installation

Gavin Turk was commissioned by Opera Erratica to design the set of a three-part opera piece titled Triptych.This original opera consists of three seemingly unrelated plays, composed by Chris Mayo, Thomas Smetryns and Christian Mason, with librettos by Orlando Wells and Patrick Eakin Young. Here, a selection of Gavin Turk's artworks are reproduced in a trompe l'oeil fashion as a simulation of the artist's exhibition, and reinserted into the context of the stage.

Black holes burning through our retinas like staring at the sun, the charcoal-like mark of the exhaust in a feat of comical automatic drawing. The fart of the car, like a contemporary cave drawing, encapsulating the ironies of our age: waste made exquisite – T. S. Eliot would have approved. The central altarpiece in this room absorbing the power of the human to give and to take away.

Emission Edition

Exhaust emissions on canvas

Exhaust

Smoke

Vehicles

Stain

Black holes burning through our retinas like staring at the sun, the charcoal-like mark of the exhaust in a feat of comical automatic drawing. The fart of the car, like a contemporary cave drawing, encapsulating the ironies of our age: waste made exquisite – T. S. Eliot would have approved. The central altarpiece in this room absorbing the power of the human to give and to take away.

The artists signature written in the style of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Jazzz Signature

Enamel paint on paper

Pollock

Signatures

Work on paper

The artists signature written in the style of a Jackson Pollock painting.

A Jackson Pollock style painting made from attempts of the Artists signature, repeated in various sizes and colours onto canvas.

A Night at Birdland

Diamond dust and acrylic paint on canvas

Acrylic paint and diamond dust on canvas

A Jackson Pollock style painting made from attempts of the Artists signature, repeated in various sizes and colours onto canvas.

A graphite rubbing of the artwork ‘Cave’.

Frottage

Graphite on paper

Death

Icons

A graphite rubbing of the artwork ‘Cave’.

A bronze cast of the middle of a toilet roll painted to look real.Turk&rsquo;s trompe l&rsquo;oeil sculptures of toilet rolls mischievously imply a symbiotic association between art and shit. Indeed, works such as In Memory of Piero Manzoni see Turk make a playful reference to Manzoni&rsquo;s Merda D&rsquo;Artista in which he presented cans of shit as art. Concerned with challenging meaning through re-cycling, re-appropriation and re-contextualisation, Turk&rsquo;s bog rolls might also be seen to taken on a new life as a child&rsquo;s telescope &ndash; itself an object used to change the viewer&rsquo;s perspective. They also bear an uncanny similarity to rollers used by painters and decorators to apply paint and wallpaper, transforming the artist into a humble tradesman in the process. Or perhaps not, since these bog rolls are made not from cardboard but bronze, elevating the status of the banal to something far more grand.

The End of the Roll

Painted bronze

Sculpture

A bronze cast of the middle of a toilet roll painted to look real.

A bronze cast of a short, stubby apple core with green skin and pips showing, painted to look real.

The Be All and End All

Apples

A bronze cast of a short, stubby apple core with green skin and pips showing, painted to look real.

A watercolour painting of a cabbage in reference to the philosopher Hegel.