Past Perfection, Vadis Turner

September 26 - October 27, 2013

Jack Geary is pleased to announce the opening of his exhibition, Vadis Turner: Past Perfection.

Featuring Turner’s recent work, the exhibition focuses on her use of fabric and mixed media. The show will be on viewSeptember 27th – October 26th at the gallery’s new location, 185 Varick Street.

Turner’s work is concerned with the way we make ourselves beautiful, but also is in dialogue with the inherent beauty of decay and its powerful finality. Along with her paintings, Turner created four “storm skirts” which are intricate dresses that each embody a powerful natural event. Her work suggests to the viewer humility and passivity contrasted with world changing power. Despite the seemingly quotidian nature of her method and materials—recycled materials and labor intensive sewing and weaving by hand, Turner reminds us that there is a world about to be upended by the power of one quietly eaten apple.

“In this new work, a vision of The Garden of Eden, post-apple, the work is placed on a woven support rather than canvas, and uses “brush strokes” made of richly-colored sewed ribbons and fabrics, which are at times billowing and ecstatic, and elsewhere focused, concentrated and dense. The variations of texture enhance the variegated play: shimmery, silky ribbon; tough, utilitarian cords; and smooth bed sheets, torn and wrung into tight ropes” writes Sarah Andress. Vadis re-imagines gender roles, rites of passage, and the classification of heirlooms in a contemporary cultural context. Her craft-based process synthesizes her mixed media palette with her abstract painting background. She “paints” with layers of ribbon, dyed clothing, and hand-sewn textiles; the materials become marks, drips and washes.

In the months leading up to this exhibition, Turner was the artist-in-residence at Materials for the Arts, in Long Island City, Queens. Turner is the third ever artist-in-residence at MFTA, a program where artists create new work reusing and transforming materials donated by the city’s different industries to MFTA’s ever-changing warehouse. An exhibition of her work will also be on view at the Material for the Arts Gallery starting on September 12th.

Works

Past Perfection, Vadis Turner

Vadis Turner’s work transforms gendered materials into abstract paintings and sculptures. Connecting generations of women, her work re-contextualizes domestic textiles and other gendered materials.

Vadis Turner

Vadis Turner’s first solo museum exhibition was presented at the Frist Art Museum in 2017. Her current show is on view at the Huntsville Museum of Art. Her next solo museum project will be at the Abroms-Engel Institute for Visual Art in 2023. Turner was awarded the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2016.

Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, 21C Museum, Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, Tennessee State Museum and the Hunter Museum of American Art. Turner’s work has been presented at numerous museums and institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, ICA Portland, Andy Warhol Museum, The Bunker Artspace, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Islip art Museum, Knoxville Museum and Cheekwood Museum. Residencies include Yaddo, Museum of Arts & Design, Materials for the Arts, Hambidge Center and a Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center. Selected press includes Artforum, New York Times, Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, Art Papers, Burnaway, Wallpaper*, Elle Magazine, Vanityfair.com, Observer, Artnet, and White Hot Magazine.

Her projects have also been funded by the Barbara Demming Memorial Fund and The Current Art Fund, a TriStar Arts regranting program through the Andy Warhol Foundation. Turner received a BFA and MFA from Boston University. She is currently the Hamblet Artist in Residence at Vanderbilt University and is represented by Geary in Millerton, NY.