Gavin Turk Oeuvre
Gavin Turk makes sculpture, drawings and assemblages that investigate what it means to be an artist. He is interested in the way that fame and celebrity affect the understanding of art and the artists that make it. He stages or remakes iconic artworks from the past, although these borrowings from the history of art are fused with references to contemporary popular culture. In doing so he emphasises the power of artists to transform 'things', while questioning the uniqueness of creativity.
Gavin Turk: Artist’s Talk
Oeuvre (Duck) is the third in an on-going series of giant eggs. The first of these was a hen's egg, which he made in response to being asked to design a coffin. The egg is often interpreted as a symbol of birth and creation, but at the same time it also suggests fragility and mortality. Turk's egg, commonplace and domestic, in a natural open-air environment, is made comic and surreal by its sheer size. Presented on a human scale, the egg refers back to the artist as creator, and hints at the familiar conundrum 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?'. It becomes a metaphor for origin and originality.
