Meet artist Shaun Doyle @copsocker .
Based in Stoke on Trent, Doyle utilises urban public space in his work. Empowering previously powerless objects through acts of daring, his work examines social and political alternatives using material as argument.
He says: “It’s a deliberate strategy of mine to use public space to create artworks; a methodology that is intended to ensure that the production of knowledge that this action represents, takes place in open view, and that the resultant art-objects interact directly with the real world.”
See his work as part of New Contemporaries, free to visit at the SLG.
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Oral Being (IV). A couple of years ago I went to Puythouck, Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk to see what was happening there. Young men, mostly Syrian, were camping in parks and the surrounding countryside keeping out of the way of army and police patrols. Many of them monitored the rail freight depot there or looked to jump on a lorry. Near what had been the migrant camp that had since been destroyed, local supermarkets displayed signs in the toilets banning the changing of clothes and the brushing of teeth. Brushing your teeth in public had become a dangerous act that signified migrant status. #oralhealth #teeth #contemporaryart
Wunch, Rabobank, 2316 XB, Leiden, Netherlands.
Sallies 3 - Wunch
(Wunch - A collective noun for bankers from the spoonerism; ‘Wunch of bankers’).
A couple of years ago I found a suitcase full of sex toys on some waste ground. I really liked them, partly because they were objects out of place but also because they signified the body in a very direct way. I left those objects where I’d found them but later made facsimiles of my own. Taking ‘wunch’, the suggested collective noun for a group of bankers, I bundled them together in bunches and took them to the city’s banks.
Sallies is an ongoing series of exhibitions in public space curated by Sam Wilson Fletcher. Sallies 4 will be a stickers show. Contact @samwilsonfletcher to contribute #publicart #bank #debt
Shaun Doyle 💫 #NCArtistInFocus
@copsocker (b.1968, UK, based in Stoke on Trent) is an artist whose practice utilises urban public space. Empowering previously powerless objects through acts of daring, his work examines social and political alternatives using material as argument.
“The artwork of mine that’s featured in the exhibition is called Cop Socker. It’s an action that involves me putting a dirty sock on the windscreen wiper of a police vehicle. Prior to this I’ve walked around without any shoes on to collect dirt with my feet. When my socks are filthy, I put one on the windscreen wiper of a police car, take a photo with my phone and walk away, leaving the sock there. There are twenty-three works in the series. I put this work forward for New Contemporaries because it’s a very direct and accessible work, and one that sums up my practice very well. All of what I do takes place in urban public space and uses very low or no-value objects and materials, empowering these objects through acts of daring.
The main themes of my practice are the use of outdoor public space and the idea of the playfight – a physical wrestling with culture whose purpose is to create a space for social and political alternatives to surface in safety without the threat of violence. Both Sloterdijk and Zizek recognise this activity as something called kynismus, although rather than defining this as ‘resistance against’, I would prefer to see it as a ‘playfighting with’. Kynic humour and apolis activity are what drive my practice. Above all, it’s a practice that wants to have some fun with its subject.”
Shaun's work and more is on view at the @SouthLondonGallery 30 January – 12 April and @MIMAuseful 8 May – 16 August.
Images: Cop Socker & Shaun Doyle taken by Hydar Dewachi.
#NewContemporaries #SouthLondonGallery #MIMA #EmergingArtists
SAVE THE DATE - Thursday, 29 January 2026 @new_contemporaries opens @southlondongallery
Location: South London Gallery, 65-67 & 82 Peckham Road, SE5 8UH (my work will be in the Fire Station building at 82 Peckham Road).
Time: 19.00-21.00
Free Entry
Images: Studio paste-up, thanks to @russelloxley
Cop Socker XIII, 2021. One of two works on show.
CS (Mingus Fingers), 2023 is on show in Leiden, Netherlands as part of I Carry a City in My Head (Part II) alongside work by Max Fletcher, Sam Wilson Fletcher @samwilsonfletcher Alix Chauvet (w/ Zoe Ng Gschmaiss) @alix.chauvet@misszoeng Dom Hale (w/ Phil Baber & Elizabeth Rafstedt) @adamantdote@erafstedt Curated by Sam Wilson Fletcher with support from Gemeente Leiden, CBK Rotterdam & @roemleiden
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📢THIS SUNDAY
Shaun Doyle @copsocker and CWR billboard launch: “Siren”
2-5pm
1 Rowse Close E15 2HX /corner Carpenters Road before the bridge.
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Excerpt from poster text:
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“Like a feral, inverted flaneur Shaun Doyle’s wandering through regen cityscapes, scummed back-alley’s and densely populated greyzones, proffer rich sites for a developing sculptural practise. The impermanent, risky - yet considered work takes form and is made entirely in the public sphere. The work stands formalised until it’s removed, often in minutes, sometimes over days. “Is it art? Is it a political act?? The actions of a madman???”. Moot points in and out of the gallery.
Using common, easily attainable, and intentionally dirtied objects - like his own socks, Doyle has broken down his previously slick, process led, collaborative sculptural practise to Diogenesian, street basics. Carrying objects in his pocket, the rhythm of walking dictate mantric links to the environs and placement of the work.
Plastic hangers. Fake penises. Iceland pizzas. Grubby rubber gloves. Raw chickens.
The latter features in Doyle’s CWR billboard work, ‘Siren’, photographed on the streets of Athens in 2025, a stones throw from the market place where Cynics philosopher Diogenes, allegedly plucked a chicken to throw at the feet of Plato academicians declaring, “this is Plato’s man!” “…
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See you Sunday!
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#copsocker #shaundoyle #featheredbipeds #artinpublicsphere #reconfiguringsculpturalpractice #feral #straydog #classwaroombillboardproject #classwaroom
Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at this moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. ‘It is possible,’ says the gatekeeper, ‘but not now.’ The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says; ‘If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note, I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.’ The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate… #kafka #beforethelaw #athens #police #policecar
