Khari Turner
2023
Visual Arts
Brooklyn, NY
Khari Turner (born 1991) is an emerging artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Khari is currently living in Brooklyn, NY after finishing his residency in Stockholm, Sweden with CFHILL gallery. His early inspiration was his grandfather that worked as a draftsman drawing small images that Khari would recreate at an early age. Growing up in Milwaukee, his landscape consisted of vast nature and dense cityscapes fighting amongst a city well known for its continued segregation. This created a relationship with Black people, water, and his environment that plays a major role in his work now. He currently takes water directly from different bodies of water including the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, his hometown’s Lake Michigan, and Milwaukee River water. He incorporates them in the work either mixing the water with paint or pouring directly on the surface of the work. His aims are to eventually start work directly related to water health, environmental conservation, and bringing art to low-income neighborhoods.
BIO
"I’ve been trying to convince my shadow that I’m someone worth following." -Rudy Francisco, My Honest Poem
I make art because of my curiosity on partial identities and known histories, recovering the air of a story. I imagine the personifications of the magic that is in water. I use water from oceans, lakes, and rivers from places that have either a historical or personal connection to Black people -- water that I collect to mix with and pour onto my paintings. My paintings and drawings combine abstraction with realistic renderings of Black noses and lips to investigate the spiritual and physical record to my ancestor’s relationships with water through life and death. All the water on this earth is the same water that has always been on this earth. The knowledge water holds is in all of us, and the realization that we share this water is my focus. My work is constantly evolving bringing the stories of elegance and chaos that comes with this existence.
STATEMENT
How can we make the outdoors a space of belonging?
My practice is surrounded by the idea of people and the connection of people through water. I take the water directly from its source and use it in the bodies of my work. Without water we would perish, and in that line of thinking, without each other we would succumb to the same fate. I want my art to tell stories, but there are so many stories to tell, so I plan on using my lifetime to being someone who documents and explores stories. The Everglades has a long and rich history, while also being a place of great mystery, magic, and wonder. Engaging with connected communities about this magic is exactly why I see my art thriving here. My answer is to bring nature directly from the source to the people, either in person or online. I can't take all of the locations I source water from to one place, but the experience and the actual material can survive with each work anywhere. Hopefully creating a yearning to be in these places and fix some of the issues with these places I collect from.