Nancy Kay Turner
Visual Artist & Writer
Nancy Kay Turner is a visual artist, art critic, and founder of the art collective Hana Kark. She is an accidental archivist and alchemist using humble materials to tell stories. She has been called a time traveler and a medium. A graduate of Queens College, CUNY, University of California at Berkeley, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, she studied painting with Elmer Bischoff, Peter Saul and R.B. Kitaj though now is a multidisciplinary artist doing assemblage, collage, artist books and mixed media installations.
Turner’s work is in private, public and corporate collections, including Warner Brothers Studios, ABC Studio and Chiat/Day Advertising Agency: and has been in movies and television shows among them, How To Get Away With Murder, Barry, Transparent, Mom, Ray Donovan, Lucifer, A Star Is Born, Hanging Up, Jane the Virgin among others. ARTPIC gallery in North Hollywood has represented Turner for two decades. Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally. She has a studio in DTLA, the arts district of Los Angeles and in Pasadena. Turner’s writing has been published in ARTWEEK, ARTSCENE, Visions Magazine, Coagula Curatorial, Cultural Weekly, Riot Material and Art and Cake.
Her work is in The Power of Feminist Art, edited by Norma Broude, Mary D. Garrard, Crossing over: Feminism and Art of Social Concern, edited by Arlene Raven, Cultural Deconstructions: Critical Issues in Collage, edited by Ric Kasini Kadour. Her drawings are in Life Drawing: A Sketchbook and Textbook, by Margaret Lazzari Echoes Of Yesteryear, edited by Twiggy Boyer. Turner’s essays have been published in “Perceive Me”, edited by Kristine Schomaker, and in the inaugural print issue of Riot Material, edited by Chris Hassett. A transcription of her artist talk at The Oceanside Museum of Art, on the artist Roland Reiss’s work is archived at The Smithsonian.
Work in Process: Unbidden
Nancy Kay Turner
Work In Progress: Artist mixed media book: 2018/2023 14” x 11”
This empty sketch book was dyed continuously in rainwater/ink/metallic pigment for over one year. Pages stuck and tore becoming ever more stubbornly present even if damaged or permanently altered. On a week -long artist residency in Lake Chapala, Mexico, I was able to complete the first 13 pages. Continuing my interest in working with found materials and both fine art and natural materials I combined vintage photographs, water damaged pages from a 1964 text on William De Kooning that had belonged to the artist David Gilhooly/silver leaf/hemp string/vintage handwritten letters circa 1900/ negative/kozo mulberry paper/dyed wax paper. The images are permeable moving through portals in pages like Albert Einstein says we move through time.
