Exhibitions
KHARI TURNER: LOST AT SEA
The New Gallery (Austin Peay State University) / 730 Joseph St. February 24 - March 28th (Reception: March 5 12:00pm - 1:30pm)
Khari Turner
“I’ve been trying to convince my shadow that I’m someone worth following.” — Rudy Francisco, My Honest Poem
The knowledge that water holds is in all of us, and realizing that we share this commonality is important to my practice. I use water from oceans, lakes, and rivers that have historical or personal connection to Black people -- water that I collect to mix with ink and pour onto my paintings. My paintings and drawings utilize abstraction and realistic renderings of Black noses, lips, and appendages to investigate the spiritual and physical existence of unknown ancestorial relationships with water. I paint to navigate through history and my identity, discovering the air of a story; A story of an embodied drop of water from the depths of the ocean - the imagined life of beings of water evaporated into the world and raised on the land of the free.
Using ocean water and ink on my paintings creates space for the material to dry and leave its traces on the canvas. The creation of crackled lines occurs as water cuts through ink reminiscent of bolts of lighting, tree roots, and human veins -- a Rorschach test of embedded reflection. From a solid to a gas, transformation becomes essential to my process. My work echoes an imagined world where a drop of water has a life lived through the body of the people it inhabits. By navigating through the story, the work takes shape and material along with it to create the boat and ocean that captains the journey.
Khari Turner is an emerging artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Khari is currently living in Brooklyn, NY after finish his residency in Miami Florida with AIRIE. His early inspiration was his grandfather that worked as a draftsman drawing small images that Khari would recreate at an early age. Growing up in Milwaukee, his landscape consisted of vast nature and dense cityscapes fighting amongst a city well known for its continued segregation. This created a relationship to Black people, water, and his environment that plays a major role in his work now. He currently takes water directly from different bodies of water including the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, his hometown’s Lake Michigan and Milwaukee River water. He incorporates them in the work either mixing the water with paint or pouring directly on the surface of the work. His aims are to eventually start work directly related to water health, environmental conservation, and bringing art to low-income neighborhoods.
