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Everything is Illuminated
Gregor Turk’s sculptural line of lamps really shines
Published: June 2010, Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles
Text: Elizabeth R. Ralls
Photos: Erica George Dines
External link: http://www.atlantahomesmag.com/article/everything-illuminated
Landscape and topography have always influenced Gregor Turk’s sculpture, photography and paintings, but decorative arts were never quite on the artist’s radar. Yet, just last December, the Atlanta native debuted a line of pictogram-inspired tableware called PlaceMates. The display- and dining-worthy ceramic plates and bowls bear the stamps of the now ubiquitous symbols for men and women plucked from restrooms around the world.
But it’s the artist’s newest home design venture—intricate, hand-sculpted earthenware lamps that are as tactile as they are beautiful—that at once reveals a glimpse into Turk’s patient, multilayered approach and renders these pieces exhibition-worthy works of art. Called Tatoosh, the collection features contoured lines that pay homage to the topography of Washington’s Tatoosh Buttes mountain summit.
The lamps’ layered format is simply an extension of two of Turk’s earlier works, primarily a freestanding sculptural series called Atlas that he says consists of large, book-like forms that “explore the absurdity of trying to contain the Earth in a book.” Because the artist wanted to explore alternatives to freestanding sculpture, Atlas soon inspired him to “bring it to the wall.” The result? A series of convex ceramic tablets called the TopoTablets, created in a similar vein.
Each Tatoosh lamp boasts a hand-sculpted, of-the-earth feel; variations in shape include rectangular and round forms as well as short-and-squatty cubes. After firing, glazing and wiring the pieces at his Westside studio, Turk tops them with silk drum shades in pebble or platinum hues.
“The lamps have an earthy feel, but there’s a sleekness to them that makes them very adaptable,” Turk says. “They’d be just as at home in a beach house as they would in the mountains or in a contemporary setting.”
Likewise, the white glaze Turk has chosen for the lamps keeps their interpretation open-ended. “It could be water currents, fingerprints, wood grain or convoluted contour lines,” the artist says. “If you go much darker, you lose sight of the lines and it becomes more about the earth and strata.”
Already turning heads at Mecox Gardens in Palm Beach, Florida, and 14 Feet in Healdsburg, California, the Tatoosh collection may be sourced locally through Turk’s studio.
Plates and bowls start at $20. Lamps start at $500 with the majority, such as the tall ones at left, costing $900-$1,000. Gregor Turk, gregorturk.com; info@gregorturk.com
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Creature Discomforts
Gregor Turk's Limits
Text: Felicia Feaster
Published: April 26, 2006, Creative Loafing Atlanta
External Link: http://clatl.com/atlanta/creature-discomforts/Content?oid=1257898
Artist Gregor Turk has long been consumed by maps. Maps of Georgia. Maps of New York. Symbolic map icons indicating bodies of water or winding roads. Maps as a means of establishing order and territory.
The thrill of Turk's most recent project, Limits, lies in how much it goes off the map, both for the artist and for the very notion of control and stability a map implies.
Turk took inspiration for Limits from the map markings that indicate political or geographic boundaries. But his squirmy, icky sculptures hardly look like anything so functional and human-defined.
Turk's 22 ceramic sculptures, clinging to the walls of his gallery/studio, are scary little beasties. About the size of a bloated baguette, they have the look of something that has just slithered out of a flesh-gash in a David Cronenberg film. Their worm-like bodies twist and writhe in postures of pain or aggressive burrowing.
The pieces conjure up a variety of associations. Some resemble tuber-shaped ferrets with their bellies turned up to the sky. Others look like leeches or eels propelling themselves through water with their ribbony, finlike projections. With the deep grooves cut into their surface, some evoke tree branches. Tree branches, mind you, about to mutate into hairless albino puppies with dozens of tiny, stubby legs.
It is their ambiguity that makes them so unsettling. The tension between their soft-belly vulnerability and their grab-your-musket parasitic threat ratchets up the anxiety factor even further.
In an unintentional, but relevant way, the setting of Turk's studio only enhances the eerie and appealing Limits. Turk's creations dwell in a slip of industrial-meets-residential zone called Blandtown, tucked between acres of kudzu and wild Georgia topography, and the ramshackle incursions of the human, including free-range dogs and toilets in back yards.
Kudzu and garbage flow and encroach. The creatures threaten to escape their lab. And an artist's examination of physical geography begins to blur the border between the conscious and the subconscious.
Limits: Opening reception April 28, 5:30-9 p.m. Through May 10. 1334 English St. Mon.-Sun., noon-6 p.m. 404-351-1463.
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Gregor Turk
The peripatetic artist and art advocate slows down- briefly- to provide a glimpse of where he’s headed next
Published: May 2006, Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles
Text: Lisa Kurzner
External Link: http://www.atlantahomesmag.com/article/gregor-turk
I am dressed in sneakers, jeans and fleece, ready for a sprint through downtown Atlanta with Gregor Turk, for an overview of public art monuments tucked in and around the skyscrapers and government buildings. At one point, we duck into the local police station to view the obscure Zero Mile Post, marking the center of the city, while Turk recites the political and geographical history of the area with ease. Then it’s back to the studio for tea and discussion of his recent projects.
A native of Atlanta who knows the city intimately, Turk is one of the most widely traveled artists in town. After a two-year Peace Corps stint in Africa, this inveterate bicyclist rode along much of the US-Canadian border collecting material for his ambitious 49th Parallel Project. From outdoor billboard projects to intimate ceramic maps (Urban Tablets) and street rubbings of historical markers, the land and its social and topographical history defines Turk’s artistic practice. He has received public art commissions from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and has also advised the airport art committee in locating art sites in its new terminal. He was recently awarded a summer residency in South Africa to work with master printers at the prestigious Caversham Press.
Luckily for Atlanta, he feels a strong sense of community and gives much of his time to teaching and advocating for public art in Atlanta. A member of Mayor Franklin’s Public Art Advisory Committee (PAAC) and the Metropolitan Public Art Coalition (MPAC), Turk serves on the boards of several art institutions in town. One is as likely to find the artist in a dinner jacket at a gallery opening as running through industrial areas with a backpack carrying tools for making urban sign rubbings. When he hosts an open studio—the next is May 5th—it seems the art, architecture and design communities all convene in his renovated bungalow off Huff Road, now positioned at the crossroads of in-town development and the Beltline along the city’s Westside.
At the moment, Turk is preparing for several forthcoming projects. He will make works for a group show titled “Space” at Solomon Projects in May. In the fall, he brings environmental concerns to a group show at the Spruill Gallery. There he will install several works in the rooms of the historic farmhouse that reflect the site and its development over time. Turk refers to himself as a “responder”, an artist who is attracted to the environment and landscape as a draughtsman is drawn to the blank sheet of paper. Using maps and signage as tools to interpret his surroundings, Turk will create mixed media environments that will pull his audiences towards a sensitivity and understanding of the land, specifically this land, in 2007.
Open Studio ( with other Westside studio artists): Saturday May 5, noon to 5: 1334 English Street, Atlanta, Ga 30318. www.gregorturk.com
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