turned and turning still
EXHIBITION DATES: June 24 - July 19, 2025
RECEPTION: Thursday, june 26, 5 - 8 pm
Closing RECEPTION: Saturday, july 19, 4 - 6 pm
The Painting Center is pleased to present the exhibition Turned and Turning Still, curated by Kellie Lehr, Jamie Powell, and Lisa Petker Mintz in the Main Gallery and Project Room. The exhibition opens on Tuesday, June 24, and runs through July 19, 2025. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 26, from 5 to 8 pm. Turned and Turning Still features work that embraces movement, change, and material experimentation. Making art is seldom a linear process; as artists, we simultaneously reflect on the past and envision the future, acting as catalysts for transformation through evolving techniques, shifting mediums, and the tension between the static and the shifting. Art creation is never still; it is stretched, pulled, layered, erased, and reimagined—an ongoing process of transformation. Image-making and image-breaking converge as artists construct and deconstruct visual or conceptual elements, exploring the emergence of new ideas and the disintegration of old ones.
This exhibition celebrates the dynamic nature of creative practice and the experimental spirit of materials, whether traditional or nontraditional. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp, who reshaped everyday objects into art that questioned permanence, and Yayoi Kusama, whose infinite repetitions challenge the boundaries between stasis and motion, exemplify this transformative spirit. Eva Hesse's fragile sculptures resist permanence, while Jasper Johns' layered surfaces carry the imprints of time. Julie Mehretu's dynamic use of layering suggests histories and geographies in flux, and Oscar Muñoz's ephemeral portraits dissolve, challenging the idea of fixed identities. Sam Gilliam's free-flowing drips expand the painting into space, while El Anatsui's shimmering metal tapestries embody the tension between decay and regeneration. Turned and Turning Still includes work that honors transformation and material experimentation, exploring the act of becoming, where materials, techniques, and subjects are always in motion and always turning still.
Artists: Liz Ainslie, Audrey Barcio, Lesley Bodzy, Brit Borcher, Susan Carr, Linda Colletta, John Cox, Carol Diamond, Keith DuQuette & Jerome Korman, Mercredi Enterprises, Terri Fraser, Adam Fulwiler, Judy Giera, SuJung Jo, Erin Juliana, Sam King, Lydia Kinney, Carin Kulb Dangot, Melinda Laszczynski, Tai Lipan, Katherine Mann, Gail Meyers, Riad Miah, Tess Michalik, Pamela Moore, Gina Occhiogrosso, Senem Oezdogan, Carolanna Parlato, Erin Parsch, Elizabeth Pratt, Elizabeth Riley, Andrew Schwartz, Vincent Serbin, Mary Shah, Kayo Shido, M.E. Sparks, Moyan Sun, Judi Tavill, Parker Lily Tuson-Morse, Marjorie Van Cura, Ann Vollum, Terrill Warrenburg, Deborah Winiarski, Zach Zecha, and Rachael Zur.