Seven Sisters

Vadis Turner

Whitespec presents Seven Sisters, a solo presentation of seven sculptures by Nashville-based artist Vadis Turner.

The exhibition title references the star cluster also commonly known as Pleiades, named by the ancient Greeks after the seven sister-nymphs and daughters of Atlas. However, this is just one version of the story, as myths about the Seven Sisters are some of the oldest in human history, and shared across the world throughout many of our earliest cultures.

Turner’s constellation of works in Seven Sisters refers as much to past mythologies as to future possibilities for earthly material—all of it, including us, made of star stuff.

In the show’s first room, Astro Vessel—a silver and Ferrari-red sculpture—sets a tone that is at once celestial and futuristic; its roommate, Gravel Vessel, presents a down-to-earth material in an elevated format. In the adjacent room, the dominant grey-and-silver wall sculpture hangs like a lunar monolith, presiding over the other vessels that suggest a journey through deep space (Weathered Vessel), an extreme weather event (Storm Vessel), or the underworld of Hades (Charon Vessel). At once foreign and familiar, the works balance on pedestals or hang from gridded armatures with an uncanny poise, holding together their wildest elements, each with a unique gravity.

Text by Emily Weiner

Image by Mike Jensen
Image by Mike Jensen
Image by Mike Jensen
Image by Mike Jensen
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Images by Mike Jensen

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Vadis Turner’s solo museum exhibitions include the Frist Art Museum in 2017 the Huntsville Museum of Art in 2022. Her current exhibition is on view at the Abroms-Engel Institute for Visual Arts at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She was awarded the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2016.

Turner’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, 21C Museum, Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, Tennessee State Museum, Huntsville Museum of Art and the Hunter Museum of American Art. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Andy Warhol Museum, The Bunker Artspace, ICA Portland, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Islip Art Museum, Knoxville Museum, Susquehanna Museum of Art and Cheekwood Museum. Residencies include Yaddo, Museum of Arts & Design, Materials for the Arts, Hambidge Center and a Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center. Selected press includes Artforum, Art Papers, New York Times, Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, Burnaway, Wallpaper*, Elle Magazine, Vanityfair.com, Observer, Artnet, and White Hot Magazine.   

Turner received a BFA and MFA from Boston University. She teaches at Vanderbilt University and is represented by Geary in Millerton, NY.