The Artist Stereotype & Why We Need to Kill It
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09/24/21 • 16 min
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Khari Turner: Painting Black Bodies of Water
“I paint to create a deeper connection to my identity and history as a Black American. Metaphorically, I see Black people as personifications of the magic that is the ocean. My paintings and drawings combine abstraction with realistic renderings of Black noses and lips to rejuvenate the relationship of my history to my ancestor’s history with water. I use water from oceans, lakes, and rivers from places that have either a historical or personal connection to black history -- water that I collect to mix with and pour onto my paintings. My focus is to create a direct relationship to my emotions and understanding of my past, a journey of spiritual connection. I focus on Black history to celebrate my ancestors for surviving the challenges they faced, not to display their pain. I paint to bring the stories and histories with images holding an elegance and chaos that comes with this existence.”
Khari Turner is an artist and a Milwaukee, WI native who lived there until the Spring of 2015. The influence of Milwaukee shows itself often in his work, especially with the use of water. Set on the coast of Lake Michigan and located at the merging of three rivers, Milwaukee is truly a water city and Khari often sat next to the water in reflection. At a young age, he took an interest in art from school peers and his grandfather, a draftsman and carpenter.
Khari found himself struggling between 2009 and 2015 which has been a big influence on the work he does currently. During this time, Khari wasn’t in school and found himself working a minimum wage retail job and switching between warehouse jobs. He worked for the NBA as entertainment some nights but life was stale and unfulfilling for him, except for the summer. His time as a child in the nonprofit called Lake Valley Camp, changed his life; He attended camp there in 2003 and later was able to work there until 2014 as Art Director. He counts his time at Lake Valley Camp as one of his biggest influences and it also led to one of his long-term goals: to start an organization that specializes in giving back efforts to young artist and creating murals in low income environments to promote community health, pride, and clean neighborhoods, while also trying to fight gentrification of these areas.
In 2015, Khari left Milwaukee and enrolled at Austin Peay State University moving his whole life to Tennessee where he received his BFA in studio art. Austin Peay was a large turning point for his artistic practice and helped him find his voice in his own work during the four years he was a student there. But, the biggest change came in summer 2019 at the Chautauqua residency. That is where his work started to form and become what it is now. In 7 weeks, Khari made a lot of work and had the open opportunity to really focus on what he wanted most, outside of class room and school limitations, questioning even if painting or sculpture was the right path to take. Eventually, Khari was able to find what he was looking for and currently he is at Columbia University. Although Khari has a lot of different ideas, what's most important to him is being a good person, donating what he can, and focusing on the actual work. There is nothing more Khari loves than creating.
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LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/khari.raheem/
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Painter John Walker: Colored Mud
I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk to the phenomenal painter John Walker. John is not only a painter whose paintings are poetic in their paint application but he is also an artist who cares about young painters. I had the privilege of studying with John at Boston University where we all were inspired by his words and awed by what paint can do.
John Walker was born 1939, in Birmingham, England. He studied at Birmingham College of Art (1956-1960), and continued his studies at The British School in Rome (1960-1961), and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris (1961-1963)
John Walker was a Gregory Fellow at Leeds University (1967-1969). He was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to the United States (1969–70) and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981. He has been artist-in-residence at Oxford University (1977–78), and at Monash University, Melbourne (1980). He also represented England at the 1972 Venice Biennale.
John has taught at the Royal College in London and at Yale University. In the 1980’s he was Dean of Victoria College of Art in Melbourne, Australia. From 1993 to 2015, he taught at Boston University and is currently Professor Emeritus of Art and former head of the graduate program in Painting and Sculpture at Boston University School of Visual Arts.
He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in NY; The Phillips Collection in DC; The Tate Gallery, London; The Hayward Gallery in London; The Kunstverein, Hamburg; The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia; and others.
His work can be found in museum collections, including The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Gallery, Edinburgh; Tate Gallery, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.
LINKS:
https://johnwalkerpainter.com/index.php
https://www.alexandregallery.com/john-walker
Video on Brooklyn Rail- https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=886689875405720
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