Elizabeth Turk

Talk Description

Sculpture, especially stone sculpture, has conveyed weight, solidity, and thus immortality. Turk's work is built upon this tradition, but offers a closer look at what is considered solid. The intrinsic weight and physicality of a rock is known intuitively, long before it is explained with words; her work plays with paradox — carving emptiness into this idea of weight, so that in the remaining negative space, the core of matter is questioned.

Biography

Elizabeth Turk received her B.A. from Scripps College in International Relations and her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. Raised in the western US, she has lived throughout the country and is today at home in three places: NYC, CA and GA. Her work is known for expanding concepts of stone, primarily marble, reminding us that dialogues with material can adapt tradition without eradicating it. Inspired by science and fueled by the muse of resistance, her work explores will & intention, mass & void. Turk is the 2010 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Barnett and Annalee Newman Fellowship, and was named a Smithsonian Research Fellow in 2011.