What remains in the artist’s possession after a four-decade career is the source for this retrospective. Presented here is the essence of the artist’s body of work from a collection pared down, reduced, and consolidated by choice (the treasured), default (the unsold/uncollected), and benign neglect (the forgotten). Gregor Turk’s studio is also a remnant. In 2003, he converted one of the few remaining houses of a once thriving African American community of over 250 homes into his place of work. Located in Blandtown on Atlanta’s westside, the neighborhood was undermined through racist rezoning in the 1950’s. Today his studio stands as a “nail house” amid mid-rise apartment complexes and new-home developments.

Throughout his career Turk has worked with a wide array of sculptural materials, but his primary focus has long been with clay- choosing to use an earthen material to make representations of the earth. Rubber, specifically repurposed bicycle inner-tubes, is also a frequent go-to medium of his as it serves to convey ideas of transit, mobility, and inbetweeness. Other studio-based media include printmaking, photography, and wax-oil rubbings. His public art projects present an even greater range of materials including rammed earth, vinyl transparencies, concrete pavers, repurposed stained glass panels, security cameras, convex safety mirrors, and billboards.

His work reflects a longstanding interest in geography and what maps tell us about ourselves as individuals and as a culture. Turk often incorporates mapping imagery and cultural markings into his artwork. He focuses on the fundamental qualities of mapping: the mysteriousness, inherent biases, cultural authoritativeness, and ability to simultaneously represent and distort reality. Turk’s public art installations can be found at the Atlanta and Jacksonville airports and at numerous public facilities (including a library, fire station, police station, and parks). His work is included in the collections of JPMorgan Chase, High Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, among others. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Rhodes College and a Master of Fine Arts from Boston University. Between degrees he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia.