Madelyn Turner’s poetically colorful representations of trauma and gendered embodiment will be on exhibit as part of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program’s art series. Our third and final art installation of the academic year will open on Thursday, March 9. There will be an opening reception and artist’s talk from 4-5 p.m. in the Rachel Cooper Hall Gallery, Room 237.
The show, “My Body and Me,” features a collection of Turner’s most recent oil paintings. “The body trauma that I have experienced and my relationship to my body fuels the work as I wrestle with what it means to live in a feminine body,” said Turner. “By exposing some of these vulnerabilities, a space is created for the viewer to also have a conversation with the work.”
Turner describes how the medium of oil painting conveys the intention of her work.
“The bodily and bloody texture of oil paint and cold wax creates a sensitivity to the materials, creating a language through mark making and opening an exploration into the body cavity of the work,” she said. “Flesh becomes material. As I paint, I leave remnants and indexes of the conversations I have throughout the process of painting … through the process of excavation, the dysphoric conversation opens up and becomes a failing moment of body memory that is struggling to remember.”
Madelyn Turner is an M.F.A. painting student at the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts at Illinois State University. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. Her exhibit runs through August 7.
