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