Meg Turner includes new fictive landscape photographs of Louisiana roadways, marrying historic print methods of collodion, photogravure and silkscreen with contemporary buildings and desires. These new works are inspired by ephemera of the past such as postcards and the backs of magazines, while demanding why a cheerful abortion clinic in Louisiana is so tellingly impossible.
Artist statement:
“NOWHERE” is a series of large scale photogravure prints on a fiber paper the exact hue of sun faded acidic newsprint. This series of Turner’s contemporary tintypes operate as fictive landscape photography that is unplaceable in time and unimaginable in our political landscape. A Free Store in Louisiana cheerfully offering dildos and driving lessons, an Abortion Clinic that also offers pap smears and dinner; a Rally’s at which to do nitrous balloons; Turners subjects share an unsettling challenge to the viewer: the subjects stare into an incomprehensible future or back at us, demanding to know how we have arrived here and where we are going. By printing her tintype photographs as unique photogravure prints with printed decorative borders Turner uses historic printing methods to reference the cheap cardboard holders that studio photographs would be slipped into, as well as postcards and printed memorabilia. Turner is positioning her roadside photographs as ephemera; moments to be recorded, collected, cherished or forgotten, hung on the wall with a thousand pushpins or rescued from a flea market under a stack of 100 playboy magazines.
Meg Turner, Statement PHOTONola 2024
“NOWHERE” is a series of large scale photogravure prints on a fiber paper the exact hue of sun faded acidic newsprint. This series of Turner’s contemporary tintypes share an unsettling challenge or unease: the subjects stare into an incomprehensible future or back at the viewer demanding to know how we have arrived here and where we are going. By printing her tintype photographs as unique photogravure prints with printed decorative borders Turner references the cheap cardboard holders that studio photographs would be slipped into, as well as antique postcards and printed memorabilia. Turner is positioning her roadside photographs as ephemera; moments to be recorded, collected, cherished or forgotten, but in this case far too large to be cast aside.