Briar Egg
Painted egg in vitrine
46 x 32 x 45 cms
1993
Egg shell painted to look like briar wood displayed in a wall mounted museum vitrine.
This sculpture is a blown egg, hand painted to appear as if it has been carved from briarwood – which comes from the root-ball of the briar bush and is traditionally used to make pipes. Wood grain is a common motif in so-called ‘trompe-l’oeil’ paintings, where the skill of the artist literally ‘fools the eye’ into believing that the flat depictions are in fact three-dimensional objects. Stone and wood eggs are popular contemplative ornaments (being elegant sculptural forms), while Turk is interested in the paradox of originality that the egg motif commonly stands for.
Exhibitions
Essays
-
Eggs - Martine Rouleau
SHOW
Eggs - Martine Rouleau
Eggs incarnate pure balance. Their harmonious simplicity of form is only rendered more poignant by their function: they hold and protect life. The strength of the shell that harbours the makings of a living creature is all the more impressive because although it can withstand surprising levels of pressure – the egg of the ostrich is reputed to support up to 20 stone – it can not resist the impact of a drop or a knock. Once the ovoid shape has been cracked by an external force, the life it was meant to protect no longer exists. Once it is broken from the inside, this life begins. Although the shell itself is made of minerals, essentially calcium, and can sometimes have the rough texture of a stone, it also has thousands of pores through which oxygen can get to the embryo.
The nurturing virtues of the egg have carried over to various cultural beliefs. Although eggs are most often perceived as tokens of affection, exchanged as an expression of love by the Alsatians or used to announce the forthcoming birth of a child by the Chinese, they are sometimes destroyed as a form of protection. Indeed, the -
Trompe L'oeil - Rikke Hansen
SHOW
Trompe L'oeil - Rikke Hansen
Like the carefully staged crime scene, trompe l’œil tricks the viewer through the arrangement of misleading appearances and false clues. Literally meaning ‘cheat the eye’, the art technique involves the realistic depiction of phenomena to create optical illusions, often turning flat surfaces into seemingly three-dimensional objects. Trompe l’œil art does not belong to a particular ism or medium but slips in and out of focus through the ages, depending on dominant regimes of representation.
Although the term was not coined until the early 1800s, the genre can be traced back to Greek and Roman times. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder writes of a rivalry in ancient Greece between the painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius, both accomplished in this particular art. Largely forgotten during the Middle Ages, the technique was given a new lease of life by the Italian Renaissance and the era’s advanced understanding of perspective, while painters of the Baroque era applied it to the then increasingly popular genre of still life. Artists of the Modern period, however, made limited use of trompe l’œil, as works no longer strived towards illusion or imitation but were made to investigate the grounds for art’s own existence. Nonetheless, a few