"Looking at the precious and overlooked nature of product packaging, I have become a domestic anthropologist, attempting to uncover the conspiracy of blindness imposed by ideological perspectives." - Gavin Turk

Gavin Turk’s series of still-life paintings pays homage to the early 20th-century Italian artist Giorgio Morandi while subverting Morandi’s serene arrangements of vases and handmade vessels by replacing them with quotidian product packaging. At first, these works appear visually anachronistic, executed in a restricted tonal palette against a monochrome ground, where some objects are highlighted with accents of colour, inviting viewers to closely study the rhythmically arranged lines and forms. By elevating empty containers from used products to the status of classical models, Turk prompts reflection on our consumer-driven culture.

This series began as an exercise in self-portraiture, where Turk preserved and catalogued used disposable packaging, with the titles of the artworks listing the products depicted, offering insight into his consumption habits and the significance of these mundane artefacts as traces of human presence over time. As Turk aptly states, “We are what we throw away.” Each piece is set within a bespoke frame, suggesting a distinctive historical journey for each object. Through this exploration, Turk challenges viewers to reconsider the implications of their daily consumer choices, drawing awareness to the nostalgia and branding of consumer products. Known for transforming banal, overlooked objects – such as refuse bags, apple cores, matchboxes, Styrofoam cups, shipping containers, and candles – into works of fine art, Turk overthrows art historical conventions, disrupts the canon, and critiques human behaviour and our relationship to the relics of our time. This new body of work is at once tongue-in-cheek, visually and technically compelling, and powerfully nostalgic.