On Saturday, May 10th at 4:00 pm Vadis Turner debuts her work Venus Rising at LongHouse. This premiers Turner’s series of abstract outdoor sculptures informed by Venus, the Roman goddess of love, as a reclining nude. Instead of seductively lounging in her place, Venus now stands upright as a stirred and emboldened grid. Liberated from the home, like a weaving gone wild, the work is composed of bedsheets and dining plates cast in aluminum. Bright red, this series feminizes the grid as a “figure” rising above the horizon. Artist led Walk & Talk free with admission.
Turner employs the language of abstraction to create textile-driven sculptures and mixed media works that challenge narratives traditionally imposed upon female archetypes. Growing up in Tennessee, the artist considers the generational influence of women navigating cultural conventions and behavioral expectations within the broader context of women’s history. In her practice, Turner encourages the misbehaviors and transcendence of domestic materials.
Art and Exhibitions Support
Vadis Turner Venus Rising is made possible by the generous support of Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo and the Dorothea Leonhardt Fund at The Communities Foundation of Texas, Inc. and project support from The Jenni Crain Foundation.
About the Artist
Vadis Turner's textile-driven sculptures and mixed media works challenge narratives traditionally imposed upon female archetypes. Growing up in the conservative landscape of the American South, the artist was raised among generations of women navigating a culture wrought with behavioral expectations. In her practice, Turner considers those experiences in the broader context of women’s history, employing domestic materials liberated from their intended functions, formal natures, and gender associations to rewrite the tale. Ribbons, bedsheets, and curtains coupled with concrete, steel, and ash take shape in misbehaving grids, unruly vessels, and mercurial braided structures, often titled after maligned female figures from classical folklore and mythology.
Distinctly unbound, each of Turner’s earthy constructions appears alive and in motion - like roots twisting through the soil or branches blowing in the wind. However, her works do not present as victims of the forces compelling their movement – rather they seem to gather momentum from any such external powers, which would attempt to define their forms. A testament to the artist’s expert handling of material, it is the apparent elasticity and mutability of her fibrous sculptures that most acutely strike the viewer. In the spirit of an archer pulling back on a bow string, Turner double-dog-dares us to underestimate the tensile strength and structural integrity of her works, and thus all that is witchy and wonderful about women.
Turner has held solo exhibitions at the Frist Art Museum (Nashville, TN), The Huntsville Museum of Art, (Huntsville, AL), the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (Birmingham, AL) and The University of Colorado (Colorado, Springs, CO). Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum (New York, NY), the Tennessee State Museum (Nashville, TN), the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts (Louisville, KY), the Huntsville Museum of Art (Huntsville, AL), the Hunter Museum of American Art (Chattanooga, TN), and the University of Alabama (Birmingham, AL).
Turner has also exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum (New York, NY), the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburg, PA), Bunker Artspace (West Palm Beach, FL), ICA Portland (Portland, OR), Minnesota Museum of American Art (St. Paul, MN), the Cheekwood Museum (Nashville, TN), the Knoxville Museum (Knoxville, TN), among others. Her work will be included in forthcoming exhibitions at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York City (2024) and The Zuckerman Museum of Art in Kennesaw, GA (2024).
