e.turner: paintings & installations

Photo

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:05:55 -0600

In the Eye of the Storm: A Tornado Installation Girl from...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:25:51 -0600

~~In the Eye of the Storm: A Tornado Installation~~

Girl from Oklahoma takes Tornados WITH HER!! (cross-country adventures gives new meaning to storm-chasing)

Water Ballet Exhibit A one-woman show, directed and produced by...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:00:00 -0600

~~Water Ballet Exhibit~~ A one-woman show, directed and produced by Erin Turner

Living Arts of Tulsa, September 2012

Interactive sculptural installation and modern dance, performed by TuMM (Tulsa Modern Movement), original score written by Andrew Bones, 3-D mapping by Sam Smith, video by Chris Long and Charles Elmore.

pre-production for WATER BALLET.. Sept. 7, 2012 Living Arts of...

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 09:44:26 -0500

pre-production for WATER BALLET..

Sept. 7, 2012

Living Arts of Tulsa (Detroit & Brady)

Poncho Villa Party First Ward Salon and Studio Tulsa. April 2012

Sun, 27 May 2012 19:06:00 -0500

~~Poncho Villa Party~~

First Ward Salon and Studio

Tulsa. April 2012

The Eye of the Storm aka Snake Charmer This installation was...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 04:38:00 -0600

~~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...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:55:50 -0600

~~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....

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:40:12 -0600

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.

“A Show for the Jungle” Gallery Exhibition/Jungle...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 22:51:35 -0500

“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.

Kansas City, June 2011, @ The Firehouse. CINDERMONSTER TALES....

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 04:17:00 -0500

Kansas City, June 2011, @ The Firehouse. CINDERMONSTER TALES. Installation by Erin Turner. Blue Poly Costumes by Erin Turner and Peter Bedgood.

Photos from OCEAN AND TOTEM show at BLUXOME POINT in SAN...

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:29:00 -0600

Space worm on Ocean Beach

The burning of the space worm

Photos from OCEAN AND TOTEM show at BLUXOME POINT in SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

63 Bluxome St. presents: The Totem and the Ocean: An...

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:23:00 -0600

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 28^th from 7 til midnight. Live music, and DJ’s to be announced.

POLY’S GONE! POLY’S GONE is a travelling...

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:54:57 -0600

~~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...

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:32:00 -0600

~~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.

works in progress..

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:17:46 -0500

works in progress..

Photo

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:11:00 -0500

Witness I, by Erin Turner and Carolyn Deuschle, mixed-media...

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 11:34:00 -0500

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 79^th 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..."

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:33:09 -0500

““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.””

- Horapollo - egyptian - 5th cent. AD

These images were created at Teatro Titerete Arlequin, Buenos...

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:21:00 -0500

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.

paintings from 2009 & 2010

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:42:00 -0500

oil & enamel on canvas, 8'x4', 2010

hair & epoxy on concrete, 14x20", 2010

oil on canvas, 6'x5', 2010

oil on canvas, 3'x3', 2009

oil on canvas, 18"x24", 2009

oil on epoxy & concrete, 14"x20", 2009

oil on canvas, 30"x38", 2010

oil on canvas, "18"x24", 2009

paintings from 2009 & 2010