Oil paint on mirror polished stainless steel

Magritte

Illusion

Trompe L'oeil

Painting

Reflections in a Window

Stool 2017

Painted bronze, wood and glass

Enamel, acrylic, wood and fibreglass

Sculpture

c-type prints

C-type colour print collage

Signs

Photographic Work

Installation info: Wall mounted with clear plastic spacers and nickel wire and with three plugsAs a direct reference to the painting ‘La Victoire’ by Rene Magritte. Port is a surreal gateway: a spiritual journey through the imagination.  It is a key to unlocking ideas of the infinite as mused on by Aldous Huxley quoting Blake. "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."	It simultaneously references Duchamp earlier work ‘11 Rue Larrey’ the door that is never open or shut.

Port (Blue)

Blue neon mounted on a black wall

As a direct reference to the painting ‘La Victoire’ by Rene Magritte. Port is a surreal gateway: a spiritual journey through the imagination. It is a key to unlocking ideas of the infinite as mused on by Aldous Huxley quoting Blake. "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."	It simultaneously references Duchamp earlier work ‘11 Rue Larrey’ the door that is never open or shut.

Doors

Fate

Duchamp

Installation info: Wall mounted with clear plastic spacers and nickel wire and with three plugs As a direct reference to the painting ‘La Victoire’ by Rene Magritte. Port is a surreal gateway: a spiritual journey through the imagination. It is a key to unlocking ideas of the infinite as mused on by Aldous Huxley quoting Blake. "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." It simultaneously references Duchamp earlier work ‘11 Rue Larrey’ the door that is never open or shut.

Both comic and provocative, Nail is a 12 metre bronze sculpture, treated as the title implies, to appear like a giant rusty nail. Standing at the entrance to French architect, Jean Nouvel’s shiny glass shopping centre, One New Change with the grand sixteenth century architecture of St Paul’s cathedral in the background, Nail is hammered between the ancient and modern. At the intersection of these two worlds, Nail is a nostalgic recollection of tools traditionally used by the construction industry and favoured by Turk’s archetypal white van man, now of less and less necessity in the modern architecture of One New Change. Its rustiness, meanwhile underscores the uselessness of this once useful object, while also suggesting the creep of the natural into the territory of the man-made. Not only a literal object, the nail doubles as a psychological object which suggests “nail in the coffin” and “nailed to the cross.” Rather more humorously, viewed from a certain angle, Nail appears to pin One New Change into the ground, although viewed from other angles, it hints at the empty space where what was nailed has long since been removed. A giant magnification of a miniature object, the closer the viewer stands to Nail, the more comically abstract the object appears, as by contrast, both the viewer and its surroundings appear to shrink.

Nail

Bronze - Permanent sculpture

Public Sculpture

Both comic and provocative, Nail is a 12 metre bronze sculpture, treated as the title implies, to appear like a giant rusty nail. Standing at the entrance to French architect, Jean Nouvel’s shiny glass shopping centre, One New Change with the grand sixteenth century architecture of St Paul’s cathedral in the background, Nail is hammered between the ancient and modern.

Life scale rusty nail made in bronze appearing to have been hit in the ground at an angle

Figure

Patinated bronze

Life scale rusty nail made in bronze appearing to have been hit in the ground at an angle

A pink and green outline of &lsquo;Font&rsquo;, slightly offset to create a 3D effect.

3D Font

Acrylic silkscreen on paper

Font

Silkscreen

A pink and green outline of ‘Font’, slightly offset to create a 3D effect.

A red outline of a polystyrene tea cup overlaid with a green outline to give the illusion that the cup is 3D.

3D Polystyrene Cup

Polystyrene

Packaging

Cups

A red outline of a polystyrene tea cup overlaid with a green outline to give the illusion that the cup is 3D.

Black &amp; white bromide and a ten minute video taken from a Performance Art event where the Artist was levitated by a magician in front of a live audience.

A Marvellous Force of Nature 

Bromide photographs & video

Black & white bromide and a ten minute video taken from a Performance Art event where the Artist was levitated by a magician in front of a live audience.

A study drawing on blueprint paper for the piece ‘Cave’.

pencil on blueprint

A study drawing on blueprint paper for the piece ‘Cave’.

Authorship

Work on paper

Study for Cave

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown.

In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor.

The title Cave refers to an allegorical picture of Plato, which describes a model of perception. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave since childhood with no experience of reality other than the flickering shadows cast by the people and things moving along a path in front of a fire situated behind them. In the plaque, the artist was represented by a retrospective view of his life.

Relic (Cave)

original plaque from Cave installation in vitrine

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown. In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor. The title Cave refers to an allegorical picture of Plato, which describes a model of perception. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave since childhood with no experience of reality other than the flickering shadows cast by the people and things moving along a path in front of a fire situated behind them. In the plaque, the artist was represented by a retrospective view of his life.

Celebrity

Death

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown. In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor.

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall in an otherwise empty room, a blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance. While the absence of the artist, we make the art. The artist is no more and all that is left for the audience in this empty white space is to reverently imagine the work which once filled this space, while apprehending that the emptiness is the work. And so material object of the plaque frames the space and the art work frames the artist, the one somehow preceding the other in an elliptical sleight of hand, as the end frames the beginning. All that is left behind of the artist is a memorial to an implied body of work, and by extension, an implied life and worth, while the title, after Plato’s famous allegory, tells of a hidden reality we can neither see nor know. In an unexpected twist to the tale, Cave has additionally become infamous as the piece of work that "won" Turk a fail for his Masters which he had been studying for at the Royal College of Art. Ironically, it has gone on to become regarded as one of Turk's most iconic pieces.

Cave

Ceramic plaque in room

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall  in an otherwise empty room, a blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance. While the absence of the artist, we make the art. The artist is no more and all that is left for the audience in this empty white space is to reverently imagine the work which once filled this space, while apprehending that the emptiness is the work. And so material object of the plaque frames the space and the art work frames the artist, the one somehow preceding the other in an elliptical sleight of hand, as the end frames the beginning. All that is left behind of the artist is a memorial to an implied body of work, and by extension, an implied life and worth, while the title, after Plato’s famous allegory, tells of a hidden reality we can neither see nor know. In an unexpected twist to the tale, Cave has additionally become infamous as the piece of work that "won" Turk a fail for his Masters which he had been studying for at the Royal College of Art. Ironically, it has gone on to become regarded as one of Turk's most iconic pieces.

Installation

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall in an otherwise empty room, a blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance.

A ceramic replica of the original ‘historical blue plaque’ which was shown by the Artist in his degree show at the Royal College of Art.

Cavey

Ceramic plaque

A ceramic replica of the original ‘historical blue plaque’ which was shown by the Artist in his degree show at the Royal College of Art.

Installation info: MIRROR INSTALLATION & DEINSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONSPlacing the floor:Take the panels out of the crates and differentiate the position that each one should take in relation to the whole sculpture.  The panels have their positions written on them on the inside center in pencil.  Position the floor base and decide on its orientation. The base needs to be level so if the floor is on a slight slope or on uneven ground use small shims or wedges to keep it as flat and level as possible.Bolt on the twelve floor plates in their corresponding positions, check that the letters correspond with one another and arrange so the letters are always facing up. Make sure sufficient pressure is applied when bolting the panels down so they are firm and secure.Take the floor panel and slide it over the grid of floor plates so it rests on the floor base. Push down evenly to make sure it’s firmly in place. Test the floor panel is securely slotted into place by walking on the base and checking its firm under foot and there is no movement.Joining the panels:Select a perspex strip and place it into the rebate of one of the short sides of the floor panel. Lift the corresponding side panel onto the perspex strip so that the two panels sit at right angles. Make sure the perspex is evenly spaced within the rebate and that the panels are evenly slotted together with an equal gap visible between them. Make sure that someone continues to hold the side panel securely in place. Put the next Perspex strip into the rebate of the floor panel, this will join onto the back panel. Lift the back panel on the perspex as was done with the previous panel when the two panels are both securely held in position and evenly spaced. Slightly tip the two panels back by a few degrees so there is enough room to slot the vertical perspex strip between the two to form the corner. Fit this into place whilst simultaneously lifting the panels back into their vertical position. You should now have the first corner fixed in place. Note that where the three strips of perspex meet there should be an equal triangular space. If the horizontal strips seem to slip down then make small paper shims/wedges to place in the rebate to keep the horizontal Perspex strip in position and the triangular gap even in size.Continue the same technique until all four walls are in place.Placing the roof:Strap or hold the four sides of the sculpture together. Pass the roof section up and onto the top of the walls so that it sits long-ways over-hanging the edges. Make sure there are plenty of people to help (ideally four or more), as this needs to be done very gently so as not to scratch any of the panels.Go inside the sculpture and with a minimum of four persons lift the roof section up and turn it into its desired position so that it’s floating above the walls.  Place the Perspex strips into the rebates on top of the walls. Designate one edge of the roof and lower this to slot onto the corresponding perspex strip. Next ease in the two sides working evenly along both at the same time so the roof evenly slots down into place.  Finally fit the last edge onto the Perspex. The roof should slot in evenly with the same size gaps and triangular spacing as the wall sections.Finish:When the sculpture is assembled make any last alteration by either moving, wiggling or pushing panels. Check that all the gaps between panels are evenly spaced and all the corner triangles are even in appearance. Touch-up, fill, sand and/or repaint any scuffs and/or paint work.Take down:Exactly as above but in reverse, Make sure when taking down panels that the perspex strips are removed early as they are likely to get caught between rebates and can easily drop out and potentially scratch etc.A cubic room with transparent edges and a door on one side. White on the outside, but dark inside, with the only light coming in through the perspex edges.

Mirror

Wood and perspex

A cubic room with transparent edges and a door on one side. White on the outside, but dark inside, with the only light coming in through the perspex edges.

Identity

Mirrors

Infinity

Installation info: MIRROR INSTALLATION & DEINSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Placing the floor: Take the panels out of the crates and differentiate the position that each one should take in relation to the whole sculpture. The panels have their positions written on them on the inside center in pencil. Position the floor base and decide on its orientation.