“the next big thing is YOU” marks the fourth solo exhibition at Galerie Gregor Staiger by Croatian-born, Amsterdam-based artist, Nora Turato. The presentation debuts a body of large-format, framed oil pastels which provide a new medium for the artist’s exploration of language, and its co-option for different means. In “the next big thing is YOU”, Turato addresses the commercialisation of ‘authenticity’ as a concept, and its role as an advertising trope. The new works are populated by fragments of text with enthusiastic encouragement, or calls to assume one’s own genuine self – inspired by the infinite well of adverts which implore you to understand that that watch, or green juice, or business class lounge access is an integral part of your core identity.   

The use of oil pastel expands on Turato’s play on the relationships between her chosen medium and subject matter, connections which have been prevalent throughout her practice. Letters which form the phrases on the works are cut out by hand with meticulous precision, while its recesses and surroundings are coloured in with thick layers of oil pastel, a medium known for its consistency and textural qualities. Turato looks to subvert the use of these expressive qualities by her methodological application of the pastel, in a sense as a nod, and corresponding, to her questions on the idea of authenticity – manufactured or genuine.