Jannell Turner

Attracted to the natural world, my paintings are an extension of my photography. I take ‘visual notes’ while walking to and from my art studio in Brooklyn, while absorbing my in-laws’ culture in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, and while meandering through forests in the Catskills and Adirondacks. These places echo throughout my paintings. I am most interested in capturing magical moments in nature, such as the subtle shine of light passing through a lone leaf stuck in the snow, or the fearless play of young boys exploring the woods. I am attracted to the texture of dying plants, odd combinations of found objects, and vibrant colors.

My photography and my paintings have been in conversation over the years. I love the intimate, authentic, and visceral, and action-oriented aspects of painting. The hand-made aspect of drawing engenders a kind of inevitable authenticity in its imperfections. It’s precisely this imperfection that stands out in the digital online world where everyone is able to be a photographer. However, the I love the immediacy and compositional abilities afforded by the camera while engaging in the present moment.

While I to rely on my camera as a quotidian practice in seeing, I return more and more to the hand drawn line. When the craft of the medium format cameras and the nuance of film development progressively dissolved to the online digital world, I came to question my own purpose. After my brother died in 2006, I became increasingly sensitive to the transience of life. To see the beauty within the mundane is to be fully awake in the present moment—to see the sacred in the every day. I have become ever more present to the intimacy in daily life, and I seek to capture this in my work.