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  1/9
  Grid View
  (oil on Glass)
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  Untitled #2
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  Untitled #33
  (oil on Glass)
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  Untitled #21
  (oil on Glass)
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  Untitled #57
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  Untitled #24
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  Untitled #43
  (oil on Glass)
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  Untitled #1
  (oil on Glass)
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  Untitled #28
  (oil on Glass)

Ray Turner’s Population is a unique, community-engaged touring exhibition that is comprised of a series of painted portraits inviting the viewer to contemplate notions of both collective and individual identity.

Population is composed of approximately 125 painted portraits rendered in lush layers applied to glass. The initial subjects were Turner’s family, friends and acquaintances—the network of people who populate his life. At each venue Turner will produce several new portraits of individuals living within that local community. Prior to the exhibition’s opening at each location, Turner will travel to the venue, select subjects from the local community (with museum staff given the option to participate in the selection process), and paint portraits for inclusion in the installation. These new faces will be intermixed with the original series to alter the whole, continually updating the exhibition as it travels. As the exhibition evolves with the addition of new individual portraits from various local communities, the body of work will increasingly reflect our nation’s diversity.

Turner's multi-layered installation explores both fundamental notions of social and anthropological archetypes and presents a dynamic visual snapshot of multiple communities. The artist's fluid, often amorphous portraits bear a clear connection to gesturalism, on one hand, and to the Expressionists and Colorists on the other. San Francisco art critic Kenneth Baker has written that “even as [the portraits] form convincing likenesses, they confront us touch by touch with the unlikeness of paint to the fugitive focal points by which we recognize a person in a face.”

This major, multiyear undertaking is being launched in tandem with a new exhibition titled “Personal Identities/Contemporary Portraits,” being curated by Michael Schwager, Professor of Art History at Sonoma State University, and that will feature Turner’s work alongside portraits by Robert Arneson, Robert Bechtle, Chuck Close, Eric Fischl, Caitlin Mitchell-Dayton, Catherine Opie, Elizabeth Peyton, William Tucker, Andy Warhol and Kehinde Wiley. Both exhibitions represent a new level of recognition for the artist as an emerging talent.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Thrive Foundation for Youth

View Marketing Booklet (PDF)

Number of Works: 125

Frame Sizes: Variable

Space Requirements: 193 linear feet (59 linear meters)

Tour Dates: Fall 2010 — ongoing

Participation Fee: Contact CATE for information

Support Materials: Publication, Population (Pasadena Museum of California Art, 2009)

REVIEWS AND NEWS

Akron Beacon Journal, Dorothy Shinn, March 11, 2012
LA Weekly Shana Nys Dambrot, August 23, 2011
KUSC "Arts Alive" Interview, Brian Lauritzen, July 9, 2011
Huffington Post, Edward Goldman, July 07, 2011
Art Knowledge News, July 04, 2011
Art Daily, July 03, 2011
All Art News, July 03, 2011
Campus Circle, Cindy Kyungah Lee, June 22, 2011
Artweek LA, June 20, 2011
Long Beach Museum of Art exhibition announcement, Spring 2011
ThisWeekInLongBeach.com, May 24, 2011
ArtSceneCal.com, Diane Calder, May 12, 2011
San Francisco Chronicle, Jesse Hamlin, November 25, 2010
Coast Magazine, Roberta Carasso, March 2010
San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker, January 9, 2010
Poets and Artists Magazine, Grady Harp, October 2009
American Art Collector Magazine, November 2008