Photo Taken In Milwaukee, United States
Ever since he was a young boy growing up in Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan, Khari Turner (b. 1991) has been drawn to water. Turner has found a unique way of continuing that connection by incorporating water sourced from lakes, rivers and oceans with personal associations or connections to Black history into his contemporary figurative paintings.
To reflect the composition of the human body, he mixes paints composed of almost 60% water. He also uses his found water as a “primer” applied to canvases before painting.
Now through July 10, 2022, the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, WI presents Turner’s first solo museum show in his home state, “Mirroring Reflection,” showcasing his work in a gallery overlooking the Milwaukee River, a source the artist has drawn water from for use in paintings on view in the show.
Khari Turner, Flower of the Lake, 2022. Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, sand, African mahogany, water ... [+]
“Water was always prevalent in terms of spaces to think and spaces for me to really start questioning what do I want to do with my life, how do I want to move forward; or if I was having a tough time I'd just sit next to water,” Turner told Forbes.com.
The show features 26 of his water-infused works.
“It was always so calming,” he remembers about coming of age around water, adding with a chuckle, “and then I used to skip rocks all time.”
“Water Does all the Heavy Lifting”
Turner’s paintings are highly symbolic, combining abstract and realistic renderings of Black figures to underscore the spiritual and physical relationship of his ancestors to water. Any discussion of Black life and history in America where it connects to water must trace its roots back to the Transatlantic slave trade. Turner approaches that reality from a different perspective.
“I used to try making art about that trauma, but (I thought) it's not helpful to people who are already looking at this work and know about it,” Turner said.
Instead of belaboring the point, reproducing the anguish being expressed by countless other artists, he found a different way of putting the water to use.
“It helps me to be able to create work with this material because I can handle having all of that information, all of the atrocities of slavery and also all of the ideas around migration and travel, but I don't have to make imagery that displays that because the material does it already, you know where these materials came from,” Turner explains.
The bodies of Black ancestors thrown overboard between Africa and the Americas decomposed in the water. They became one with it. A part of them returns through Turner’s paintings when he sources water from the ocean.
The material tells that terrible story sufficiently.
“Then I am allowed to create images of happiness and joy, but never anything that has to deal with the trauma from that water,” Turner said. “The water does all the heavy lifting. That frees me up as an artist to be able to create images saying I know that there's this history, but I choose to live along with it in a way that I can still talk about joy.”
Khari Turner, River Steps, 2022, Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, African mahogany, water from: Coast of ... [+]
Doing so reveals a more authentic self.
“It felt like it was a lot more personal and it was a better message if I (could take that water) and apply it to (joy)–we will still ride bikes, we're still going to the park, we still are having a good time,” Turner said, referencing imagery from his paintings. “(Trauma from water) is a part of history, and you should know this is a part of history, but I'm not going to stop being an artist. I'm going to be here doing what I want to do and I want to be able to create joy even though I know this history.”
Success on a Global Stage
“Mirroring Reflection” follows Turner’s solo international debut at the 2022 Venice Biennale this past spring where a presentation of his paintings remains on view through November at Palazzo Bembo to coincide with the ongoing Super Bowl of contemporary art.
He spent the month of May in Stockholm, Sweden preparing a show of entirely new work for exhibition there this summer.
Coming off a residency during the pandemic in Venice, CA with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University to his credit, the increasingly global artist who now lives in Brooklyn is undoubtedly on the verge of a major career breakthrough.
Despite that international success, Turner considers the MOWA show an early career highpoint.
“The people who really influenced my work or who grew up seeing me got to see that show,” he said. “My high school art teacher came to that show and people who I used to work with, so it's really an amazing moment. Venice is great and hopefully one day I get my own pavilion to represent the United States, but it was definitely different being able to give back to (my) community, making artwork and showing it, (hoping) this might remind (visitors) of home because a lot of these images are based on me growing up (in Milwaukee)–kids on bikes, going to the pool, sitting in class.”
Museum of Wisconsin Art; West Bend, WI; HGA Architects and Engineers.
For additional insight into Turner’s evolution as a man and artist, he recommends a visit to Klode Park in Whitefish Bay, a community just north of downtown Milwaukee and less than an hour’s drive from MOWA.
“It's the best park I've ever been to and is really where I got a lot of my motivation and where I grab water from when I use Lake Michigan water for work that I make,” Turner said. “That park is set up where you see Lake Michigan, but the land around it curves on each side so you don't see any of the city and it's mostly all trees and when you look out into it, it feels like you're looking at the ocean.”
Looking into a Khari Turner painting.
