Nick Turvey

Harlow Art Trust
In pouring rain, Chief (a 2010 sculpture) was installed outside the Harlow Playhouse in November 2016. It is a long term loan to the Harlow Art Trust, whose collection of public sculpture includes work by Auguste Rodin, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ralph Brown, Lynn Chadwick, Lee Grandjean and Elizabeth Frink, and joins my 2010 piece ‘Methuselah’, located at Newhall.

Harlow Playhouse,
Playhouse Square,
Harlow, Essex, CM20 1LS

Image: Chief
Visions
A programme of performance and projections.

Nunnery Gallery

5 October – 18 December 2016

Liam Geary Baulch & Jeremy Laffon, G. Roland Biermann, Anne Brodie, Lidija Kononenko, Irina Danilova & Hiram Levy, Robert Luzar, Antonis Sideras, Nick Turvey & Joanna Hogg and special screenings from LIMA artists Douwe Dijkstra, Johan Rijpma, Nina Yuen.

181 Bow Road, London E3 2SJ
Abjects
2016. 30pp book of photographs. Edition of 20. 10 x 10 x 0.5 cm.

Sitting in bars and restaurants, I find my hands just making things out of the detritus on the table – peanut shells, bottle tops, toothpicks etc. A rude and nervous habit. But I started photographing the results. A timid and insignificant riposte to the big, shiny art of our era.
Nachtpuls
Lap kUNStkLUB

International video and performance night, curated by Patricia London Ante Paris.

1 August 2015

Beate Passow, Eva Lammers, Ossi Fink, Stefano Giuriati, Olaf Probst, Nick Turvey, Martina Bieräugel, Kurt Petz, Andreas Stetka, Martin Zet, Annegret Bleisteiner, Scarlet Berner, Heike Döscher, Josef Felix Müller, Alix Stadtbäumer, Despina Olbrich-Marianou, Georg Loeb, Anja Uhlig, Stefanie Unruh, Gila Stolzenfuß, Tina Bepperling, Wolfgang Stehle, Rita Hensen, Vincent Mitsev, Brygida Ochaim, Jo Arneth, Joanna Hogg.

Schluderstrasse 45, München, Germany

Image: Push Me Pull You – Installation view
Station to Station
A 30 Day Happening

Barbican Gallery

Curated by Doug Aitken

27 June – 26 July 2015

Joanna Hogg and myself were commissioned by Barbican Gallery to produce a work for the Film Programme of Doug Aitken’s multi-media Station to Station project.

Image: Push Me Pull You – installation view
Push Me Pull You
2015. 2-channel video. 9 mins.

A collaboration with Joanna Hogg, consisting of a conversation about whether and how we could collaborate on a piece of work, restaged in drag.

Image: Push Me Pull You – publicity composite
Mummy And Daddy
2014. Vitrine, wallpaper, model V2 rocket, model atom bomb and mixed media. 79 x 41 x 129 cm.

The Cowboys and Indians wallpaper that lines the floor of this vitrine was in my bedroom as a child. In retrospect it seems hardly accidental, living as we were in the shadow of Mutual Assured Destruction, another mythic confrontation.
Leviathan
2014. Mixed media. 104 x 134 x 13 cm.

Is this an autopsy or a life-saving operation? In/Out? Independence? Just like our parents, the nation state is more vulnerable than we like to think. Shout out to Thomas Hobbes.
Dieu et Mon Droit
2014. Bronze resin and mixed media, plywood, paint and flag. 66 x 100 x 84 cm.

Edwin Landseer’s allegorical animal portraits are a great source of inspiration, as are Bernini’s illusionist textures. This snarling armoured car is a piece of contemporary heraldry, reflecting the sense of entitlement that power creates.
It’s A Boy (detail)
2014. Vitrine, wallpaper, carved marble. 79 x 41 x 129 cm.
Innocent (detail)
2014. Vitrine, wallpaper and mixed media. 79 x 41 x 129 cm.

In a dream I was making an artwork involving a battle tank and a pile of rubble. The solution was revealed to me by a man with a dead rabbit (Joseph Beuys, obviously), resulting in a series of vitrines. The title of this one alludes to Francis Bacon’s version of the painting by Velasquez, another portrait of power.
For Your Safety & Security
2014. Vitrines, wallpaper, nylon and acrylic paint. Each 53 x 65 x 7 cm.

Marcel Duchamp suggested to Richard Hamilton that he produce his own versions of classical genres, prompting Hamilton’s 1970′s ‘Flowers and Shit’ series, to which I have responded with my own flower paintings, infested with weaponised insects.
For Your Safety & Security – Eglantine 1
2014. Vitrine, wallpaper, nylon and acrylic paint. 70 x 75 x 7 cm.

Marcel Duchamp suggested to Richard Hamilton that he produce his own versions of classical genres, prompting Hamilton’s 1970′s ‘Flowers and Shit’ series, to which I have responded with my own flower paintings, infested with weaponised insects.
For Your Safety & Security – Eglantine 1 (detail)
2014. Vitrine, wallpaper, nylon and acrylic paint. 70 x 75 x 7 cm.
For Your Safety & Security – Abundance 1 (detail)
2014. Vitrine, wallpaper, nylon and acrylic paint. 53 x 65 x 7 cm.

Marcel Duchamp suggested to Richard Hamilton that he produce his own versions of classical genres, prompting Hamilton’s 1970’s ‘Flowers and Shit’ series, to which I have responded with my own flower paintings.
Dear Leader – Shanghai
2014. Solid cast bronze, gold plated and enamel paint. Unique. 28 x 14 x 5 cm.

In granting the State a monopoly on violence, we become dependent on it. This totem of benign/malign authority melds Artemis of Ephesus with that latter-day avenging angel, the Tomahawk missile. Shanghai is one in an ongoing series of regional interpretations of the idea.
Dear Leader – Original Version
2014. Solid cast bronze and acrylic paint. Edition of 5. 28 x 14 x 5 cm.

In granting the State a monopoly on violence, we become dependent on it. This totem of benign/malign authority melds Artemis of Ephesus with that latter-day avenging angel, the Tomahawk missile.