Gavin Turk’s Top Pick from Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2022

The annual Curated Hang is entirely unique to Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair's model, bringing work by independent, up-and-coming, global artists into conversation with established names exhibited by leading galleries.

Celebrated British artist Gavin Turk first made a name for himself following the Royal College of Art MA show in 1991. Gavin’s controversial contribution to the exhibition was a blue heritage plaque reading, ‘Gavin Turk worked here 1989-91’. Catching the attention of Charles Saatchi, Gavin’s minimal and conceptual approach propelled him into the Young British Artist movement of the 1990’s. Since his swift rise to fame, Gavin has remained a central and integral figure in the contemporary art scene.

Using printmaking techniques including etching, linocut and monoprint, Grace creates images with contrasting lines, shapes and considered introduction of colours and textures. Her aim is to interpret the experience of landscapes, creating images that are suspended between reality and fiction.

Using archival paper and laser-cutting technology, Isobel Napier designs and creates intricately constructed paper sculptures that resemble woven fabric. Cut line-by-line to leave the strands of warp threads, a solid, coherent form, is irreversibly transformed into one that is extremely fragile and transient. The paper works become almost soft and flowing, echoing traditional weaving.

Sarah Lorrimer-Riley’s digital collage work is characterised by the playful layering of photographic elements, creating a bright, bold and sometimes unsettling alternative reality. The viewer is invited to explore and question the narrative in focus, holding a magnifying glass on modern British Society. The artworks are often hand finished with 24 carat Gold leaf, or pencil and ink markings, meaning each piece is totally unique.

Emma Adesina’s work focuses on the natural world. Highlighting ways in which humankind uses aspects of the natural world in a symbolic way. Uncovering how and way humanity attached meaning to objects.

Hugh Hamshaw Thomas makes large digital photographs that are presented as objects pre-dating the birth of photography. He inverts the seemingly empirical gaze of the camera to question ideas of memory, nostalgia and loss that are entwined in our readings and construction of the natural world via the idealisation and representation of landscape in art.

Mario Gonzalez’s artwork reflects displacement, fragility, time, past, memories, that Mario finds in himself, his personal experiences and his surroundings. These works evoke memories of landmarks from biographical significance, and conceptually embody through the performance of folding the paper a process informed of migration and transition.

Lucy May Schofield works in collaboration with expansive landscapes and dark skies, marking seasonal shifts with paper, ink and wood to connect and convene with nature. Meditating on the earth’s rotation, the phases of the moon and our relationship to light and time have inspired performative acts exploring place. She seeks a dialogue with the temporal and transience nature of our impermanence through papermaking and printmaking. Her work is held in international collections including the Ashmolean Museum, Tate Britain, Yale Centre for British Art, MIT and Stanford University.

Jodie Wingham’s artwork investigates the nature of looking. Inspired by the act of observing others and the audiences’ enjoyment of this process she focuses on the viewers desire to gain information, what satisfaction we receive when an image is presented to us that reveals something not usually seen, a glimpse into the hidden. Using imagery with voyeuristic tendencies, where private moments are captured, she offers the audience the opportunity to fill in the gaps, interpret a narrative within the image in order to explore the act of looking and the roles of viewer and ‘voyeur’ in her work. Using this idea of the viewer as voyeur Wingham looks at how this act of looking can be invested with a power which is uncomfortable, even dangerous but ultimately enjoyable.

Steven Allen’s work is inspired by positivity and crafted through simplicity. His recent editions are a mixture of his love for minimal bespoke typographic and illustrative forms. Steven always endeavours to create with the finest materials.

Margaret creates delicately coloured original prints based on gesture, dance and sign. The stillness and silence of the works is not accidental, often it’s because her models are deaf. Each step or movement of arm, hand and body flows from a performer who speaks the visual language of sign. Whether signing or dancing without words, each gesture is intentional and resonant with hidden meaning.

Gavin Turk formed part of our Selection Panel for this year’s Curated Hang, comprising of artwork by successful applicants from the annual International Artist Open Call. Selected by an esteemed annually-changing panel of art world professionals, exceptional curators, artists, and experts in print. It offers an extremely well informed view of the most noteworthy emerging and established printmakers, and a wonderful introduction to the diversity and quality of contemporary print. Artwork is included across a huge range of techniques, styles and formats, meaning there is always something for both budding young collectors and seasoned art world professionals alike, with prices starting at just £100.