Amy Turner
I See Faces
Isabelle Havet, Art Historian, Linn-Benton Community College
The exhibition I See Faces offers a glimpse at the visual landscapes created by Amy Turner. Complex, joyful, and deeply personal, Amy Turner’s drawings defy easy interpretation and classification. We are offered vibrant yet fragmentary visual experiences of the artist’s kaleidoscopic and tesalated perceptions. Teeming with life and energy, these drawings present worlds in which each form appears interconnected. Interwoven figures, objects and decorative shapes overwhelm the page in intricate visual tapestries.
Although each drawing is a unique creation, threaded throughout the artist’s body of work is a highly personal visual vocabulary. Simplified, abstract forms and symbols intertwine in boldly stylized compositions. Adults and children with smiling faces and wide eyes greet the viewer, alongside elements such as plants and insects, vibrant suns, and playful fantastic creatures. These figures merge with interlocking shapes and patterns, including stars, dots, circles, and eyes. Interspersed with these various forms are landscapes elements that hint at iconic Pacific Northwest topography: oceanscapes, jutting piers, clouds and driving rain, winding mountain highways, and forests that extend into the horizon.
Equally important in Amy Turner’s work is a boundless energy and sense of play. Her pen drawings, like her vibrantly colored marker drawings, evoke a childlike wonder. With no clear focal points, and figures that point to the experiences of both children and adults, her drawings generate questions for those interested in posing them. However, there are no easy answers to these questions. The stylistic elements that suggest a childlike naivete are at odds with the work that must have gone into creating the repetitive motifs and painstakingly built-up visual forms. One is left to wonder: how were these compositions arrived at? What is the relation between conception and execution? Despite their mysterious qualities, the drawings are strikingly intimate and personal artistic creations that give form to the connections that surround us, and perhaps spur us to see the many ways we connect and make meaning in our day-to-day lives.
I See Faces
Isabelle Havet, Art Historian, Linn-Benton Community College
The exhibition I See Faces offers a glimpse at the visual landscapes created by Amy Turner. Complex, joyful, and deeply personal, Amy Turner’s drawings defy easy interpretation and classification. We are offered vibrant yet fragmentary visual experiences of the artist’s kaleidoscopic and tesalated perceptions. Teeming with life and energy, these drawings present worlds in which each form appears interconnected. Interwoven figures, objects and decorative shapes overwhelm the page in intricate visual tapestries.
Although each drawing is a unique creation, threaded throughout the artist’s body of work is a highly personal visual vocabulary. Simplified, abstract forms and symbols intertwine in boldly stylized compositions. Adults and children with smiling faces and wide eyes greet the viewer, alongside elements such as plants and insects, vibrant suns, and playful fantastic creatures. These figures merge with interlocking shapes and patterns, including stars, dots, circles, and eyes. Interspersed with these various forms are landscapes elements that hint at iconic Pacific Northwest topography: oceanscapes, jutting piers, clouds and driving rain, winding mountain highways, and forests that extend into the horizon.
Equally important in Amy Turner’s work is a boundless energy and sense of play. Her pen drawings, like her vibrantly colored marker drawings, evoke a childlike wonder. With no clear focal points, and figures that point to the experiences of both children and adults, her drawings generate questions for those interested in posing them. However, there are no easy answers to these questions. The stylistic elements that suggest a childlike naivete are at odds with the work that must have gone into creating the repetitive motifs and painstakingly built-up visual forms. One is left to wonder: how were these compositions arrived at? What is the relation between conception and execution? Despite their mysterious qualities, the drawings are strikingly intimate and personal artistic creations that give form to the connections that surround us, and perhaps spur us to see the many ways we connect and make meaning in our day-to-day lives.
Amy Turner
We came across Amy's art in the midst of curating an exhibit at CEI ArtWorks about artists who live in Benton Plaza, the same building that CEI ArtWorks shares: http://outpost1000.weebly.com/we-live-here-the-artists-of-benton-plaza.html
Amy was well known in downtown Corvallis, she had an active life and worked at various times as a hairdresser and waitperson.
The social workers in the building clued us into Amy's work, though she passed away just as we were moving into our space. One pic shows us at a memorial for her. At the time of her passing, much of Amy's work was collected by her daughter Tammy who lives in Tennessee. Thankfully our social worker friends and others found just enough of her work to include her in our exhibit (her first). Amy's daughter is thrilled that people have an interest in her mother's work. Please forgive the informality of this page as we are just beginning to assess it. Some 80 singular works survive. They are mostly in 9x12 range with a few larger pieces in color and 3 "books".
We came across Amy's art in the midst of curating an exhibit at CEI ArtWorks about artists who live in Benton Plaza, the same building that CEI ArtWorks shares: http://outpost1000.weebly.com/we-live-here-the-artists-of-benton-plaza.html
Amy was well known in downtown Corvallis, she had an active life and worked at various times as a hairdresser and waitperson.
The social workers in the building clued us into Amy's work, though she passed away just as we were moving into our space. One pic shows us at a memorial for her. At the time of her passing, much of Amy's work was collected by her daughter Tammy who lives in Tennessee. Thankfully our social worker friends and others found just enough of her work to include her in our exhibit (her first). Amy's daughter is thrilled that people have an interest in her mother's work. Please forgive the informality of this page as we are just beginning to assess it. Some 80 singular works survive. They are mostly in 9x12 range with a few larger pieces in color and 3 "books".
"Pink Book"
