Cod and Chips to Take Away

Painted bronze

4 x 21 x 31.5 cms

2008

A bronze cast of a crushed polystyrene chip tray, painted to look real.

Finding beauty in the trashy and ugly, Turk gives the polystyrene used chip tray – alongside with its cousin the burger tray – a grandiose makeover, transforming rubbish into art in the form of a painted bronze sculpture. The remains of a traditional English dish and cheap street food for the masses, Turk’s chip trays become elegiac and nostalgic relics not just of a hearty meal but a set of cultural values which appear to be rapidly vanishing.