Romanian-British artist Cristina Schek returns to London’s W4th Plinth

Romanian-British artist Cristina Schek will unveil her monumental work Fern Girl at W4th Plinth in west London on Saturday, September 19. The 4-by-4-metre piece will be displayed on the railway embankment wall at Turnham Green Terrace in Chiswick, the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) in London announced.

Created in 2022 at the intersection of photography and digital art, Fern Girl depicts a female figure almost absorbed by vegetation. Leaves become clothing, camouflage and a second skin, blurring the boundary between the human body and nature.

“I love the idea that Fern Girl will live for several months in the middle of London, on a four-metre wall,” Cristina Schek said. “People do not enter a gallery to see the work; the work appears on their way to the station, home, or their morning coffee.”

Supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, the installation makes Schek the only artist in the project’s history to present two separate works. Her first W4th Plinth piece, The Ceiling in the Sky, was unveiled in 2023 by British actress Dame Siân Phillips.

Fern Girl was selected in a 2022 competition that attracted almost 500 submissions. It will be officially unveiled at 14:00 by art historian Cynthia Valianti Corbett, founder of the Cynthia Corbett Gallery and the Young Masters Art Prize.

“In Fern Girl, I play with logic again: this time, the ferns have taken control, and the vegetation and the human figure are no longer quite sure where one ends and the other begins,” Cristina Schek said.

Five days after the unveiling, the artist’s works will also be presented at the British Art Fair at London’s Saatchi Gallery. She is due to participate in Art Miami in the United States in December.

Cristina Schek is a London-based Romanian-British visual artist whose practice combines photography, digital manipulation, surrealism, and visual storytelling.

Inspired by the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, W4th Plinth was launched in 2019 with a work by British artist Sir Peter Blake. Curated by environmental and educational organization Abundance London, the project displays large-scale contemporary art in public spaces, with works generally remaining in place for at least six months.