Ribbon Paintings, Vadis Turner

Red Candy and Black Mold

Working with traditional forms of craft, Vadis Turner has developed a language that re-imagines rites of passage and the classification of heirlooms in a contemporary context.

In 2009 she made a series of contemporary heirlooms that comprised her Dowry. During her dowry research, she became interested in how subjects and spaces are adorned for transformational ceremonies. Culturally specific adornments idealize and purify subjects as they transcend from their current identity into a new identity. They simultaneously embody a climax and a demise. The rite of passage isolates the brief state of in-between.

Turner’s current work synthesizes her mixed media palette with her painting background. Ceremonial adornments are partnered with destructive agents to generate compositions that are in a similar state of transition. Satin ribbons and flowers are fixed in a stilled state decay inspired by stages of fire, mold or submergence. The union engages, consumes and repurposes the materials. The mixed media paintings capture the dark beauty of change and loss.

Vadis Turner is a mixed media artist living in Brooklyn. Her work reimagines materials connected to gender roles and rites of passage.