Ray TurnerReview

Grady Harp, PoetsandArtists

RAY TURNER has been a successful artist for many years now. Living, painting and teaching in Pasadena, California, Turner has become one of the most highly respected representational artists across the country for his moody, psychological landscapes and cityscapes, images of ancient broken buildings and monuments as well the old trains moving across his impressive canvases at a speed that punctuates his concept of the passage of time and the importance of capturing the essence of history in the images that emerge from his canvases today.

For a painter whose large seascapes and landscapes have suggested the influence of the ‘other Turner’ (JMW Turner) as well as Monet, encountering his figurative work at first seems jarring and out of place with his romantically imbued subject matter. But Turner has been painting portraits since the 1980s — his first ‘model’ was a beloved elderly friend, Joe, whom he painted almost every day until Joe’s death at the age of 96. And from that artistic and emotional experience Turner learned not only how to observe and recreate what was before his eyes, but also how to burn images in his mind of friends and… Please click here to read the full article and view images.