NORMAN TURNER: A SURVEY

November 4, 2007-January 6, 2008

Artist Challenges Perception of the Modern Landscape

The energetic and colorful landscapes of Norman Turner will be on view at the Wright State University Art Galleries between November 4, 2007 and January 6, 2008. The exhibition, Norman Turner: A Survey, will feature thirty-eight paintings and drawings representing the artist’s work from the 1980's to the present.

A public lecture will be given by Norman Turner on Sunday, November 4 at 2:30pm in room M252 Creative Arts Center to be followed by an opening reception in the University Art Galleries, A132 Creative Arts Center from 4:00-5:30pm.

Norman Turner, born in 1939 in Storm Lake, Iowa, grew up in Iowa City, where he spent his youth roaming the vast Iowa landscape outside his back door. Turner started as an undergraduate at the University of Colorado studying music composition before moving to New York City in 1963 to pursue his newfound passion for the fine arts. He was a founding student of the New York Studio School, studying under Charles Cajori, Mercedes Matter, George Spaventa and Esteban Vincente. In the years following those at the Studio School, Turner began to experiment with and refine his picture making technique.

Reviewing his work in "The New York Times", John Caldwell described it as "electrified Van Gogh." Turner’s work recalls Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase as seen through the lens of a Paul Cézanne still life. Turner combines structural, overlapping brushwork with multiple perspective shifts that mimic the movement of his eye and the ever-changing nature of the landscape itself.

Norman Turner currently lives in New Paltz, New York and spends the summers painting in the mountains of Vermont.

The exhibition is supported by the Friends of the Galleries, Wright State College of Liberal Arts and Ohio Arts Council.