Aaron R. Turner (b.1990 | West Memphis, Arkansas )
based in Northwest Arkansas
EDUCATION
2016 - Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, M.F.A
2014 - Ohio University, M.A. - Visual Communications
2012 - The University of Memphis B.A.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 - Black Alchemy: Resolve (attempt #2) | AuroraPhoto, Indianapolis, IN (forthcoming June 2024)
2023 - Black Alchemy: Resolve (attempt #1) | Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY (July 6th - September 30th)
2023 - Fantastic: (Black Alchemy: Backwards/Forwards Revisited | TONE Gallery, Memphis, TN (January 21st - March 18th)
2023 - Phenomena | The Medium @ The Creative Exchange Fund (CACHE) Springdale, AR (June 1st - June 8th)
2022 - Black Alchemy: Remembering Fazendeville | Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA (December 9th- )
2022 - Black Alchemy: If this one thing is true [Redux}, | Staniar Gallery - W&L University
2022 - Nothing Even Matters (select images from Black Alchemy Vol. 1, 2, & 3)} "Perspectives Gallery" at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (forthcoming February)
2022 - [as luck would have it], Virginia Tech, College of Architecture & Urban Studies (January 14th - 21st)
2022 - Yesterday Once More | Walton Arts Center, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery |Fayetteville, AR ( January 15th - April 3rd)
2021 - Black Alchemy: If this one thing is true, curated by Drew Sawyer | Houston Center for Photography | November 19 –January 9, 2021, Houston, TX
2021 - Black Alchemy: Backwards/Forwards | Light Work - Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery | January 19 - March 4, Syracuse, NY
2019 - Black Alchemy, startUP Art Fair Houston | Hotel ICON - Houston Texas Oct. 11-13
2017 - Arkansas Delta - October 4 - November 1 | Mercer County Community College James Kerney Campus Gallery | Trenton, NJ
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
- What Now? (Or Not Yet), The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College (Jan 21 - Sep 21)
- Dismantling Monoliths, SF Cameraworks | San Francisco, CA (January 22 - March 25th)
- 115 Miles East, MA Doran Gallery | Tulsa, OK (March 31 - April 29)
2022
- Spectrum, TONE (Mitchell Gallery), Memphis, TN (April 2nd - May 14th)
- TIS03, Washington University | Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts (St. Louis, MO), curated by Meghan Kirkwood (January 25th - February 25th)
- Subject - Object. Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University | Canton, NY (January 19 - February 26)
- On the Grid: Ways of Seeing in Print, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College | Poughkeepsie, NY (August 20 - December 22)
- Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers, New Orleans Museum of Art (September 16th - January 8th)
- Refracting Histories, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago (Nov 10 — Apr 2, 2023)
- National Invitational exhibition hosted by The University of Iowa, Visual Arts Building, Drewelowe + Ana Mendieta Galleries (October 3 –October 29)
2021
- What I know to be true, and other encounters, curated by Annette An-Jen Liu, Photo Access Australia (December 16th - January 29th, 2022)|
- Shaping Identity: A Non-Linear Journey
The Baldwin Photographic Gallery, Middle Tennessee State University - Murfreesboro, TN (November 4th - January 27th 2022
- Safe Travels, Study Hall Gallery at PrattMWP - Utica, NY (Sept. 20th - Dec. 30th)
- f22 Fine Art Prints Pop Up, West Town Pop Up Project (Sept 23rd -26th) Chicago, IL
- Collaborating with the Archive, Filter Photo,Chicago, IL September 24 -October 30, 2021
- Source Material, Colorado Photographic Arts Center (Aug 13th - Sept 25th)
- UnBound10!, Candela Gallery, Richmond Virginia (July 2nd - Aug 7th)
- This Is The Day: Reckoning and Rejoice, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (March 17, 2021 - September 26, 2021)
- The Ongoing Moment: Recent Acquisitions of Photography at the Loeb, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College | Poughkeepsie, NY (March 13th - June 27th)
- Home Alone Together - Dadian Gallery in the Henry Luce III, Center for the Arts & Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary - Washington, D.C.
- Kind of Bluets: Color (Aid) Commentary curated by Breanne Trammell, Public Storage) - “Quarantine in the Cube” panel at CAA in (February 2021)
-Dos Mundos 20/21, SUNY Fredonia (Jan 19-Feb 28, 2021), SUNY Binghamton (March-May 2021), SUNY Stony Brook (July-Oct 2021)
BOOKS
2024
Essay Contribution: Into the Quiet and the Light Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana by Virginia Hanusik (April), Publisher: Columbia University Press, Columbia Books on Architecture and the City
Writing Contribution: American Glitch by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein (February)
Publisher: Gnomic Book
2023
Monograph: Moves from the Archive, Publisher: Sleeper Studio
Exhibition Catalog: Called to the Camera Black American Studio Photographers Edited by Brian Piper | Yale University Press (March 14, 2023)
2022
Exhibition Catalog: On the Grid Ways of Seeing in Print by Jessica D. Brier | Scale Arts Publishers Inc. (November 2022)
Turner, A., Hirsch, R. (2022). Photograph Fredrick & Jules, 2019 from Black Alchemy Volume III. Light and Lens: Thinking about Photography in the Digital Age (Fourth ed.). Thames, Oxfordshire: Routledge | Taylor & Francis Group.
There may still be time left (photographs from the Black Alchemy series), essay by Daoone Huff, Q&A interview w/ BASEMENT Art Space NC , Publisher: Visual Studies Workshop
2021
Safe Travels Zine, edited by Sydney Ellison, Publisher: Study Hall Gallery - Pratt MWP
A New Nothing publication series
a new nothing, Vol. 1 - edited by John Pilson
a new nothing, Vol. 2 - edited by S*an D. Henry-Smith
a new nothing, Vol. 3 - edited by Dan Paz
UnBound10!, Exhibition Catalog, Publisher: Candela Books
Contact Sheet 210: Aaron Turner, Light Work
Black Alchemy: if this one thing is true (TIS03), Publisher: TIS Books
2020
What Does Photography Mean to You?, edited by Grant Scott, Publisher: The United Nations of Photography
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2023 Travel Grant, J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, University of Arkansas
2023 Individual Artist Fellowship - Multisensory Art | Arkansas Arts Council
2023 The Plains Exchange Residency | Tulsa Arts Fellowship
2022 Nueva Luz Study Center Fellowship | En Foco
2022 The Creative Exchange Fund (CXF): 214 Artist Residency Award | CACHE
2022 Darryl Chappell Artist in Residence at Ogden Museum of Southern Art
2021 Creator Labs Photo Fund | Google & Aperture Foundation
2021 Juror’s Choice Award (Collaborating with the Archive) | Filter Photo
2021 The Silver List | Silver Eye Center for Photography, The Black List, and Carnegie Mellon University
2021 HCP Fellowship | Houston Center for Photography
2020 Artist 360 Grant | Mid-America Arts Alliance
2020 Critical Mass Top 50 | Photolucida
2020 BASEMENT Art Space Residency (Digital) (Chapel Hill, NC) - September
2020 Emergency Relief Grant | American Academy of Arts and Letters
2020 University of Arkansas | Studio Art Endowment Funding, for The Center for Photographers of Color (Fall-Spring 2020-2021)
2020 Visual Studies Workshop, Project Space Residency - Rochester, NY (July) (postponed 2021)
2019 Studio Art Research Grant - University of Arkansas School of Art - (Fall)
2019 startUP Art Fair Houston, Featured Artist Merit Award (nomination)
2019 University of Arkansas | Studio Art Endowment Funding, for The Center for Photographers of Color (Fall-Spring 2019-2020)
2019 Faculty Research Grant University of Arkansas School of Art (Spring)
2019 Adolf Fassbender Travel Award – Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
2019 En Foco Photography Fellowship
2018 University of Arkansas | Studio Art Endowment Funding, for The Center for Photographers of Color (Fall-Spring 2018-19)
2018 Flash Forward 2018 TOP 100 - Magenta Foundation
2018 New York Portfolio Review | hosted by New York Times Lens Blog
2018 Light Work Artist-in-Residence Program - (August ) Syracuse University
COLLECTIONS
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Library Acquisitions
The Ledger Public Collection | Bentonville, AR (acquisition)
New Orleans Museum of Art (acquisition)
Museum of Contemporary Photography (acquisition)
Center for Creative Photography (CCP), University of Arizona (acquisition)
The Candela Collection (acquisition)
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center - Vassar College (acquisition)
The MC Hotel - Montclair, NJ (acquisition)
Telfair Museum of Art/Jepson Center in Savannah, GA
Light Work – Syracuse, NY
Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Looking At Appalachia
Room 220
Indie Photobook Library
The Blue Library