Martin Boyce, Remembered Skies, 2018

The limited edition Remembered Skies, 2018 was produced by Martin Boyce as an edition of 50 on the occasion of Remembered Skies, the installation outside the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain. Each work is signed and numbered by the artist.

Tate Britain’s Clore Gallery is home to the world’s largest collection of JMW Turner’s work, including a large-scale free display of over 100 paintings, as well as thousands of sketches and watercolours.

Both the installation and the limited edition consist of the words ‘Remembered Skies’, one spelled out in lights across a paved terrace, the other silkscreened on pages of ‘The ‘Skies’ Sketchbook, J.M.W. Turner. With some letters upside down or on their side, the constellation of tumbling shapes deliberately slows down the act of reading. The viewer has to piece together the phrase by walking and reading the work from different angles.

Talking about the development of this new commission, Martin Boyce said: ’The phrase Remembered Skies came about through Turner’s paintings. While watching a documentary on Turner the question of composition was raised and how Turner would at times construct his compositions by moving mountains, repositioning trees and the framing of buildings. For his skies the constant changing conditions of clouds and light would necessitate a composite of the seen, imagined and remembered’.

Martin Boyce (born 1967) is a Scottish sculptor inspired by early 20th century modernism. Boyce is best known for his atmospheric installations recalling archetypal 20th century landscapes, such as the urban park, the abandoned garden and the corporate lobby, as well as modernist interior motifs and objects like fireplaces and lamps. Many of his works incorporate text, written in an angular typeface developed from a repeat pattern designed by the artist and based on the geometric shape of four concrete trees created by the modernist sculptors Jan and Joe Martel in 1925.

His work has been exhibited internationally, and is represented by galleries Modern Art, Glasgow, and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. In 2011 Boyce won the Turner Prize for his installation Do Words Have Voices, displayed at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead.

• Artist Martin Boyce
• Artwork Remembered Skies
• Dimensions 13.5 x 51 cm
• Material Silkscreen on ‘The ‘Skies’ Sketchbook, J.M.W. Turner (2 page spread)
• Date of work 2018