City Art announces the return of North Carolina artist Tim Turner to the Main Gallery.   Longtime followers of the gallery may remember Turner’s large abstracts from a show many years ago.  While there are some abstracts in this show, most pieces are works that embody a sense of joy, like a cup of tea, a glass of wine, or a bouquet of flowers.  These elements emerged after Turner survived a heart attack in 2020, cancer in 2021, and cancer again in 2022.  This series, “Songs of Celebration”, captures the joy in the simple things that bring pleasure. 

Turner uses acrylics in a limited color palette on large scale canvases.  The compositions use collage elements made from old paintings to create vessels and other details to relay the story.  Viewers will observe the texture the collage elements bring to the work, along with the brush strokes used to create the floral elements…lots of small flowers to create visual space and impact.  Intentionally placed textured dots throughout the pieces help unify the art and create a subtle but evident sense of flow.  

Within the exhibition exists another body of work that Turner calls the “Bird” series.  Inspired by the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Steven, Turner realized he could do a group of paintings to capture abstracted bird shapes to relay “a sense of conversation, of community, a meal shared and probably the occasional squabble.”  During the process of creating this series, Turner played around with different bird shapes and got “totally sidetracked” while looking for a distraction from his typical style.  He states that the paintings turned out differently than any other ones he had ever created.  As a result, he decided to sign the works by his middle name, “Leon.”  

“Songs of Celebration” is now hanging through December 2024.   A reception will be held during the 39th Annual Vista Lights event on November 21, 2024.