RALPH TURTURRO: On through summer, 2005, Stone Fish Arts, Calgary

by

RALPH TURTURRO

On through summer, 2005

Stone Fish Arts, Calgary

By Jill Sawyer

In 1982, painter Ralph Turturro interned with George McNeil, an abstract expressionist and member of the New York School. McNeil tried to talk him out of the “difficult” work of making a living as a painter, but Turturro didn’t listen. Based in upstate New York, he’s built a career with work that conforms closely to the intuitive, gestural canvases of the mid-20th century expressionist masters. A poet as well as a painter, Turturro’s  process is a weeks-long, intuitive response to what he sees around him and the daily intrusions of news, conversations, TV, dreams. The result is emotive, multidimensional imagery that shape-shifts from frame to frame and distills the randomness of every day into a representation on canvas, wood or paper. “There is nothing more abstract than everyday life,” Turturro says. “The difficulty is in separating what is real from reality. It happens in micro and macro places of our cells, our brains, our homes and schools. One way to balance all this stimuli is to turn it into virtual space. Painting is one option.”

Represented by Stone Fish Arts, Calgary