Susan Turner

Susan Turner

Spheres Lens and Tabernacle

I am a printmaker and video artist, and work digitally. I scan materials and objects, photograph, download and upload files, and with Photoshop generate images and recontextualize recurring forms to create new ones. I work fluidly, organically, and rely on visual sensibility to control the happy serendipity available through digital processing.

I print with archival inks on Hahnemuhle German Etching inkjet paper, the weight and texture of which recall papers used by artists over the centuries for etching and lithography, both of which I have done. I have also been experimenting with alternate substrates for printing such as fabric and vinyls. My videos blend voice, audio, and image animation in an exploration of memory, impermanence, identity, and psychological states.

I work to express the evanescent and intangible in visual form; my work is a search for essentials and connections. Through juggling chaotic states and meditative sanctuary, I create multi-layered, mysterious and reverberating spaces in which interiors and exteriors collide. As an artist, my formal interests lie in variation, mutation, and the intersections between representation and abstraction. Texture, colour,light, and movement are essential to my work.

The series Spheres and Lens, square in format and printed on paper, speak of energy and play, motion, pattern, and colour. They are built on my observations of nature (drops of water, rays of light, insects) and of aspects of the constructed environment (mechanical devices, typography, household objects).The images in the Tabernacle series, which are printed on vinyl, look at Jewish ceremonial fabrics, and act as conduits for reflection, for musing on invented realities, and for wanderings into memory and imagination. Large at 30” x 48”, they counter more intimate experience such as the sensation of the talit (prayer shawl) around the shoulders or the velvet parokhet (ark cover) against the hand.

About Susan

Susan Turner has exhibited in Canada, Argentina, Holland, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, UK, and the US. Her most recent one-person show was in 2017 at Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford, CT, and prints are included in 2018 in Abstract Mind, CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea.

In 2016, she produced, wrote, and directed the videos Trembling like a Leaf in the Wind and Clamber. Her video Alien Hand (2002), about the loss of her father to dementia, premiered at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and won a Jury Award at the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival.

Her work is in public and private collections, and has been supported by Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, and Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.

She is active in Winnipeg’s artist community, taught at the School of Art, University of Manitoba, was a MAWA mentor (Manitoba Artists for Women’s Art), and in 2017 founded ARTA, a Winnipeg artist collective. Additionally, she has curated and designed exhibits for the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada: The Jewish Wedding (2005), Samuel Freedman: Chief Justice of Manitoba (2006), Winnipeg Jews & the Garment Industry (2014), and Synagogues of Manitoba (2016).

For further information, contact Susan Turner at sbturner@shaw.ca