Alumnus Khari Turner '21 in Solo Show at the Museum of Wisconsin Art

By
Catherine Fisher
April 25, 2022
Painting of a woman with a floral dress.

Alumnus Khari Turner ‘21 is featured in his first solo exhibition in his home state of Wisconsin. Mirroring Reflection at the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) will be on view from April 30 to July 10, 2022. 

For Turner, who grew up in Milwaukee and will have his international solo debut at the Venice Biennale later this month, this is a sort of homecoming. The artist’s work is interested in the biological realities of our physicality and references the fact that we are composed of almost 60% liquid by using water drawn from rivers, lakes, and oceans. Turner incorporates this water into his paintings by adding the water to his paint or directly to the canvas. Each of the bodies of water used by Turner have a connection to the Black American experience whether through spirituality or the cruel reality of the slave trade. Using this water to paint renderings of Black figures that juxtapose the realistic and abstract bring these histories to the forefront. 

According to the press release, “the title of Turner’s exhibition, Mirroring Reflection, itself reflects [the artist’s] interpretation of the spirit, the body, and the expansive knowledge that he feels water holds. He seeks to personify water, to view rivers as children, lakes as adolescents, and the ocean as the elderly.” By thinking of water in this manner, Turner tries to imagine  “the human life cycle together in a water cycle-based coming-of-age story. The bodies of water holding boundless knowledge reflect on one another metaphorically through mirrors angled at each other to create the illusion of infinity.”

Turner was born in Milwaukee, WI and now lives in Harlem, NY. His work has been shown at Ross-Sutton Gallery in New York.