Captured and provoked by the cross-cultural narratives and evocations of certain visual symbols, E.Turner correlates these effigies with her personal mythology. Available materials, workman's materials, are key to her installations. Painter's plastic, car wash foam, chickenwire, tinfoil, and newspaper, are transformed into 50ft. serpentine sculptures that hang in space, or are burned on location. She takes toxic, discarded materials, and manipulates them to expose the magic of the material. She is intrigued by the transformational qualities that art works and installations have on one’s idea of reality, space, and time. By burning her sculptures, she prompts a discussion about impermanance and ritual.
Humans relate to symbols on multiple levels in reference to time, culture, environment, and the individual perspective. Working 2D, 3D, and 4D, motifs and subject matter traverse the different dimensions. They flow from the paint of the brush, to take form sculpturally, and extend to the performer as a personification of the visual symbol. Her work is about the extension of a painting into the third and forth dimensions. By examining the interaction of the different dimensions, her work questions how a narrative influences a painting, that then prompts the creation of a three-dimensional work. She is interested in how the viewers can interact in a three dimensional painting, as well as interact with characters from the painting. She pushes the boundaries and roles of art vs. artist vs. viewer vs. performer.
Cirriculum Vitae:
B. 1985
Education:
2003-2004 Pratt Institute. GPA 3.98
2004 Summer Painting Studio, Barcelona, through The School of Visual Arts
2007 Painting Program La Universidad del Museo Social Argentino
2005-2008 BA Fine Arts The University of Tulsa GPA 3.829
Solo Shows:
2003 “e.turner”, The Wild Fork, Tulsa
2005 “The Romantic Life of the Common Eel”, The Blue Moon, Tulsa
2007 “Caballo-Pato Fiebre”, Liggett Studios, Tulsa
2009 “New Works by Erin Turner”, The Wild Fork, Tulsa
2009 “Photography and Painting”, Shades of Brown, Tulsa
2010 “e.turnity”, The Eclipse, Tulsa
2010 “Hair Show”, Lloyd Gallery, Pawhuska
2011 “The Totem and the Ocean”, Bluxome Point, San Francisco
2011 “Hair and Fashion”, Dwelling Spaces, Tulsa
2-Person Shows:
2005 “Welcome to the Jungle”, The Space Gallery, Tulsa
2008 “Totems”, Scissortail Industries, Tulsa
2009 “Corazon Sagrado”, Day of the Dead Festival at Living Arts of Tulsa
2010 “Witness I” Tulsa Race Riot on-site Installation, Tulsa
Selected Group Shows:
2004 “Freshman Restrospective” (20 freshmen chosen), Pratt Institute, Brooklyn
2006 “38th Annual Gussman Awards” (Honorable Mention Award) , Alexander Hogue Gallery, Tulsa Artists Coalition Gallery, Tulsa Performing Arts Center Gallery, Tulsa
2006 “Momentum Tulsa”, Mathews Building, Tulsa
2010 “Crying Woman” New Genre Festival XVII at the Living Arts of Tulsa
Installations/Set Design:
2009 “TranscenDANCE”- Co-Director & Set Designer, SummerStage Festival, Performing Arts Center, Tulsa
2010 “Blue Demon” – Permanent Installation at Elote Restaurant and Bar, Tulsa
2010 “Space Worm 1” – Olga Crespo Gallery, Wilmington, North Carolina
2010 “Song of the Swimming Sun” – Set Designer for Soluna Dance Company, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
2010 “Burning Head”, Performance and Installation, Yellow House, Tulsa
2010 “Space Worm 2” – This Land Press Office, Tulsa
2011 New Year’s Eve with Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, The Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa
2011 Environmental Installation Design for “Space Bar”, Robertas Restaurant at the Scope International Gallery Festival, New York City, March 2011
2011 “Cinder Monster”, Performance and Installation, The Firehouse, Kansas City
2011 “A Show for the Jungle”, Koh Phangan, Thailand
Other:
2006 Honorable Mention for Painting, 38th Annual Gussman Awards, The University of Tulsa
2009 People’s Choice Awards, Tulsa
Selected Press:
Gleason, Matt. “Salvaged Works of Art.” Tulsa World 06 July. 2008
http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20080706_38_D1_hWomen920152
Jenkins, Joy. “The People’s Choice.” Tulsa People Aug. 2009
http://www.tulsapeople.com/Tulsa-People/August-2009/The-peoples-choice/
Deuschle, Carolyn. “Behind Bars: A Profil of Erin Turner.” Art Focus Oklahoma May/June 2010: 8,9.
http://issuu.com/ovac/docs/artfocus-mayjun10
Nicks, Denver. “Guerilla Rememberance.” This Land Press. 2010
http://thislandpress.com/06/20/2010/guerilla-remembrance/
Selected Professional Experiences:
Tierraviva, Fernando Bedoya, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2007). Artist’s Assistant
Resonance, Center for Women, Inc. Tulsa (2007-2009). Art’s Coordinator
Living Arts of Tulsa, New Arts Camp. Tulsa (2009). Sculpture Artist in Residence
Kendall Whittier Inc. Youth Mentor Program. Tulsa (2009). Contract Art/Literacy Teacher
Swimming in the Osage, Grant McClintock. Oklahoma (2009). Photography Assistant
Living Arts of Tulsa, Art Core Studio Program. Tulsa (2009-2011). Program Coordinator
Show and Tell with Peter Bedgood, A Variety Television Show. Tulsa (2010-2011). Set Designer, Art Director, and Stage Manager
Project Creates, Tulsa (2010-2011). Teaching Artist
GS Productions, FLY – The Land Below the Wind, Borneo, Malaysia (2011). Production Manager
The Eye of the Storm
aka
Snake Charmer
This installation was created in December 2011 on Kutle Beach (Kudley, Kudle, or any other way one can spell this place), in Gokarna, India. Inspired by Amitav Ghosh, viewing the world through the eye of the storm, and the sacred snake, the installation set the scene for a short theater production by Canadian playwrite Jimmy King. The eye of the storm, and a portion of the snake were burned at the end of the play. Special thanks to Kevin Kerrington and Nathan for the fabulous acting and photography.
The Snake and Her Diamond
This installation was created at The Middle Way, Koh Phangan, Thailand in October, 2011.
Most people dread the thought of prison. Claustrophobia, confinement, artificial and controlled light sources, concrete, stale air. On the contrary, I waited months to go to prison. I had been volunteering for a Peruvian man, Fernando “Coco” Bedoya, who began, in collaboration with the Ministry of Argentina in Buenos Aires, La Estampa, an art workshop that functioned inside the female prison Ezeiza No. 3. I was assigned to diligently catalogue every piece of literature that had been written about this collaborative, over the 7 years since the founding of La Estampa. Cataloguing and organizing, waiting for permission to be granted so that I could finally enter into the compound that so many people dreaded visiting. A place where dreams die.
And then I recieved word from Coco; I was granted entrance.
We sat on the train, myself and Coco; him with his Einsteinian apperance of white wirey hair and mustache, casually flipping through the paper, and me, cold and dishevelled, nervously anticipating the institution.
From the station we took a cab to the perimeter of an emmense plot of land that looked like an abandoned west-side soccer complex covered with course yellow grass. We walked 200 meters to the first police checkpoint, a small kiosk situated between ‘out’ and ‘in’. An officer took my passport and the admittance letter, and we were escorted to the next police checkpoint, at the entrance of the prison. I walked through a small scanning machine, left my cell phone and other belongings behind, and followed Coco in his labcoat, through hundreds of steel bars.
The skeleton keys that opened each door were as long as my face. Through many cold corridors, we finally arrived to the studio. Women drinking mate, drawing, talking, twisting paper, making paper, painting, building frames. All the cogs of the machine that I was so familiar with were swinging and spinning, and occasionally interrupted by the clanking of an old grocery cart that was filled with cigarettes, chocolate, toilet paper, and other random goods that the girls could buy with their credit.
I sat down and spoke with Doris, a Peruvian jungle-woman.
We were talking about the stars, as I was most intrigued by the night sky at this time. Doris and I have the same favorite star you see; and a fascination with diamonds.
Some stars, instead of exploding or imploding or becoming black holes, simply lay down and stop breathing. Their massize carbon corpses slowly crystalize into a diamond skeleton. Jewels of the night sky that no longer glisten like sequins on evening gowns.
She was from a remote place in the jungle, where folkloric tales were whispered to her by her aunt; tales where animals posessed secrets and treasures; tales that she trudged through like toes through mud after a summer rain.
Walking 8 hours through thick viridian tones, to a place where a waterfall sits on its throne of three converging rivers, snakes hold diamonds in their mouths… However, when the snake goes to bath in the river it will leave its diamond on the shore… If you capture the snake’s diamond, you will be granted anything your heart desires… But the snake will chase you, for he is very fond of his diamond… With the diamond you must escape to the canopy of the trees…
Doris spent her childhood searching for the diamond of the snake, and many years of her adult life in prison, painting this scene; painting the night sky that she was no longer granted to see.
Dear Doris,
I found your diamond in Thailand.
Love, Erin
In a tree house, an open-air platform governed by the light of the sun, and breezing the ocean’s breath, a winged-serpent and her diamond were born.
50ft. of chickenwire and newspaper swung and sung on the wind a song of the Ouroboros, the Pheonix, the Quetzalcoatl, the Snake and her Diamond. It is a song about rebirth, renewal, resurrection, the cyclical nature of life, immorality, the enternal unity of all things.
At sunset on October 24, 2011, at the Middle Way, on Koh Phangan, in Thailand, a group of 20 gathered for the exhibition of the “Snake and the Diamond”. We awaited the glistening stars of the night sky to light the massive serpentine beast. She was carried down to the beach, soaked with petrol, and sent to her firey grave. It was a ritualistic burning speaking to the ancient symbols of the song; a procession and process that united and ignited this group of people in the darkness of the new moon.
The burning lasted for about 5 minutes, giving the nearest neighbor ample time to rush to the conclusion that an bush fire was about to consume his home. The panicked expat and his Thai wife came running down to the beach (where the group found themselves entranced by the flames) screaming phrases such as “Respect Thailand!”, “Is this some yoga bullshit!?”, “Would you do this in your own country!?” Well, yeah, of course I respect Thailand, no it’s not some yoga bullshit, and yes, I have definitely done this in my own country. In fact, this is the third sacrificial paper sculpture I have burned.
Rumors of naked hippies, forest fires, and pagan rituals spread like wild fire around the local hangouts and hubs on the island. Like any small community, gossip keeps people alive and well in the most boring of moments.
Only the faint smell of petrol, seeping like whisky from the skin the day after a hard drink, was left on the boulders where the smoulder occured. When the police and the mayor arrived the following day, they found only a few leaves that were charred from a tree that was watching too close to the flames. No traces of Quetzalcoatl, Ouroboros, Pheonix, the Snake and her Diamond, were left on the beach, because, as everyone knows, from her ashes, she will rise.
All drawings are 11”x14”, pastel and graphite. Images created in Thailand, inspired by the people, jungles, and snakes of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Borneo. September, October 2011.
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“A Show for the Jungle”
Gallery Exhibition/Jungle Installation, Koh Phangan, Thailand, July 2011.
All paintings were inspired by the jungle, and made for the jungle. The paintings were left hanging on the palms on an incline in the middle of the jungle.
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Kansas City, June 2011, @ The Firehouse. CINDERMONSTER TALES. Installation by Erin Turner. Blue Poly Costumes by Erin Turner and Peter Bedgood.
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Photos from OCEAN AND TOTEM show at BLUXOME POINT in SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.
63 Bluxome St. presents:
The Totem and the Ocean: An installation by Erin Turner.
Turner, a native of her hometown, Tulsa, OK is a painter, sculptor, costume/set designer who’s installation at 63 Bluxome St. is a mixture of large scale, material-intensive serpentine structures, wall-sized drawings, audio recordings, and a slide show of photographs taken on the road between Tulsa and San Francisco. Her imagery begins with ancient Aztec mythology and is transformed through rigorous material manipulation, quickly reorganizing itself around a new, albeit timeless sense of original narrative. Her work is integrally tied to a personalized notion of the mystical, and an uncanny knack for exposing the magic in material. Don’t miss the opening party for this exhibition. Friday, January 28th from 7 til midnight. Live music, and DJ’s to be announced.
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POLY’S GONE!
POLY’S GONE is a travelling installation performed by Erin Turner during January 2011. The installation occured on the road between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and San Francisco, California. Several key locations of the installation are: the Grand Canyon, the Mohave Desert (in a burned out meth-lab trailer), and Fort Funston, San Francisco. Poly arrived in San Francisco to be a part of Turner’s installation, The Totem and the Ocean. Poly is a large serpentine sculpture created by Erin Turner and Peter Bedgood from red car wash foam.
HEAD BURNING
HEAD BURNING was performed in October 2010. The head sculpture was from a previous installation, Crying Woman. The head was burned as an offering to incarcerated women.
Witness I, by Erin Turner and Carolyn Deuschle, mixed-media installation
Location: Block between Boston Ave, Boston Pl. Fairview, and John Hope Franklin Blvd.
On view: June 8, 2010
On the 79th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Riots, we think about landscape as a metaphor and a manifestation of politics, economy, religion, history, with the knowledge that landscape is a witness to all of these things. Before the race riot in 1921, the Tulsa landscape was articulated by racial tension, the Frisco tracks acting as a sort of artificial horizon line; after the race riots, destruction wrecked havoc to the land—city blocks burnt to the ground, plumes of smoke hung lifeless in the sky, the river and ground held the remains of lost lives. With land still barren, human bodies still underground and nameless, Tulsa’s landscape needs rejuvenation and renewal.
For Witness I,a human figure wraps around the trunk of a tree, situated prominently in one of the neighborhood most affected by the race riots. In the form of ouros boros—that mythic symbol of a snake eating its own tail—the human figure is portrayed as eating her own feet, to symbolize the continuity and cycle of life: it is a message of peace and hope, and it is tied directly with the land. Lights inside the figure allow the piece to be seen at all times of day. Witness I will explore the psychological impact of the race riots on Tulsa’s environment—as well as serve to help remember those lives lost—so as to redefine the landscape, and thus the community, in new terms: peace and hope.
If they wish to represent the universe, they draw a snake scattered with bright scales, swallowing its own tail: the flakes indicate the stars of the universe… each year it divests itself of it’s skin, the old time… and the consumption of its own body ndicates that all things in the world which may be produced by divine providence in the world, also succomb to decay.
These images were created at Teatro Titerete Arlequin, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2007.
During the time that e.turner was living in Argentina, she was working for Tierraviva, an NGO that promotes artistic development through humanitarian projects. She worked for Fernando Bedoya, a peruvian artist who started an art workshop that functioned inside of Ezeiza No. 3, a female prison.
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