written in stone

elizabeth turk

“Script is the grace of a line that conveys meaning in a single stroke,” declared my grandmother, Rita Rue Robbins, a first-grade teacher of 35 years. As children, my sister and I would spend hours writing in cursive within the structure of lined notebooks to guide our curves and loops. To me, script has always been mysterious; an elegant code that not only holds secrets of the past, but also, to use my grandmother’s words, “a chance to communicate directly with the future.”

Elegant and understated, the beauty of calligraphic scripts has resonated across cultures and time. Deciphering family letters or reading the original draft for books and other documents can change historical interpretations dramatically. Penned passages caught in time reveal the true intentions of their authors.

Written in Stone marks the change caused by technological communication the ubiquitous keyboard and AI and seeks to question the transformation of everyday handwriting. What happens when the curved lines of a scripted passage no longer hold meaning, or even exist? Or when the generations of tomorrow merely glance at a handwritten letter, fail to understand it, cannot decipher it, and simply move on, losing its nuances to history? To me, this change is a fundamental shift and one with no return.

Marble, a memorial stone, is my chosen material to convey this shift. For me, an aimless curved line with its own tenuous link to a greater geological story is the ideal metaphor. I sculpt an endless line that leads nowhere, fractured but fortified through repairs, defying the conventional notion of stone as a solid, everlasting monument. Its strength lies in a delicate balance, a fragile marble line realized only because its environment, the mass of stone, has been removed and its context left invisible. Without context, narratives transform. Without direct interpretation, meaning mutates. These sculptures have been works in progress for over ten years, during which time fewer and fewer children have learned how to read or write script. It is a quiet extinction, one that is happening every day.

Recent MRI evidence reveals the power in practicing script to expand neurological pathways. These pathways benefit the understanding of broader and more complex visual shape information and promote our ability to develop abstract thought. What happens when these neural pathways never grow? Will we be able to comprehend abstract information? Will it matter?

The Japanese philosophy of kintsugi inspired me to mend imperfections found in the stone itself or created during the carving. Kintsugi is the concept of embracing the flawed or imperfect; in practice, it is the art of repairing broken

Passage 16 , 2021–22

Marble and gold leaf

Passage 2 , 2015–22

Marble and gold leaf pottery and artifacts. The gold leaf highlights these areas. It identifies the imperfect and invites the metamorphosis of the perception of weakness into a rich narrative of acceptance and thus, strength. Throughout history, gold leaf has also served as the material employed in significant calligraphic manuscripts. It has been the material of the spiritual, the everlasting, the wealthy. And yet, it is often found deep within the earth. It is universally a material intrinsic in redirecting conversations of both healing and the sublime.

There is an obvious paradox in a memorial of something as ephemeral and anthropocentric as script created with a solid, seemingly permanent rock gilded with a mineral. The contrast underscores the impossibility of each sculpture’s fragility. They exist in a space filled by our yearnings for permanence in the face of eternal flux and our own earthly physicality. This space acknowledging truth is lost to the ambiguity of ideas, history and blurred memories, a mirage, perfect for a moment. This impermanent instance finds an exquisite longevity in marble’s voice.

Born

1961 California

Education

1994 M.F.A., Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD

1983 B.A., International Relations, Scripps College, Claremont, CA

Solo Exhibitions

2023–24 Elizabeth Turk’s The Tipping Point: Echoes of Extinction , Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX

2022–23 Elizabeth Turk: The Collars , Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CA

2022 Tipping Point: Echoes of Extinction , Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI

2020 Elizabeth Turk: Tipping Point—Echoes of Extinction , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

2019 Tipping Point , Catalina Island Museum for Art & History, Avalon, CA

2018–19 Elizabeth Turk: Heaven, Earth, Home , Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT

2017 Think Lab Live , SCAPE, Corona del Mar, CA

Dialogue in Stone , ADAA Art Fair, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

2015 Elizabeth Turk: Tensions , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

2014 Elizabeth Turk: Sentient Forms , Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA

Script, Masterpiece London, Hirschl & Adler Modern, London, England

Convergence; X-ray Mandalas, SCAPE, Corona del Mar, CA

2013 Elizabeth Turk: Wings , The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

2012 Art Kabinett , Art Basel Miami Beach, Hirschl & Adler Modern, Miami, FL

Elizabeth Turk: Cages , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

2008 Elizabeth Turk: Ribbons and Pinwheels , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

Traces , Bandini Art, Culver City, CA

2007 The Lotos Club, New York, NY

2006 Elizabeth Turk: The Collars , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

9 1 ⁄ 2 x 16 3 ⁄ 4 x 4 in.

Drawings , Joie Lassiter Gallery, Charlotte, NC

Domestic Settings , Galerie Lareuse, Washington, D.C.

2004 VantagePoint III Elizabeth Turk The Collars: Tracings of Thought , Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC

2003 (Know) Fly Zone , Installation, Santa Ana, CA

2001 A Memorial to Nature I, An Installation by Elizabeth Turk , Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA

1998 Elizabeth Turk , Hemphill Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Recent Group Exhibitions

2023

After “The Wild”: Contemporary Art from The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation Collection , Jewish Museum, New York, NY

2022 Double Take: Mel Chin & Elizabeth Turk , Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI

2021 Birds of the Northeast – Gulls to Great Auks , Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT

Our Secret Fire , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

2020 COVID Diaries , SCAPE Gallery, Corona del Mar, CA

2018 Wrestling The Angel: Artists in Conversation , Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC

Centennial Celebration , Shoreline Project Video Installation, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA

Vis-à-Vis , Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York, NY

2017 License to Deceive , Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY

2014 Six Women , Hostler Burrows, New York, NY

2013 Duets: Art in Conversation , Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY

Alive: Moving Nature|Art and Nature Laguna Art Museum Collaborative , LCAD Gallery, CA

2012 Meticulosity, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2011 Night Scented Stock , Curated by Todd Levin, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY Masterworks: The Best of Hirschl & Adler, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY

Loose Canon , LA Louver, Venice, CA

2010 Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC

2008 Modern Love: Gifts to the Collection from Heather and Tony Podesta , National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Looky See , Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis School of Art, Los Angeles, CA

New Acquisitions , Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, CA

Celebrating Women Artists , Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY

Poetry & Works on Paper, Joie Lassiter Gallery, Charlotte, NC

2006 Complicit , University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA

Draw, Paper, Sciccors , Jeanne Patterson, Los Angeles, CA

2004 3 Solo Projects: Jane Mulfinger, Ross Rudel, Elizabeth Turk , Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2003 Matter and Matrix , Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, CA

Going Public , American Institute of Architecture, New York, NY

Social Sculpture

2022 Ridgeline , ETProjects.Foundation, Upperville, VA (in collaboration with Oak Spring Garden Foundation and The Piedmont Environmental Council)

2020–22 Look Up, ETProjects.Foundation, Pomona, CA

2018 Shoreline Project , ETProjects.Foundation, Laguna Art Museum, Main Beach, Laguna, CA

Awards / Grants / Residencies

2020 CODAworx 25 Creative Revolutionaries of the Year

2013 Lotos Award of Distinction, The Lotos Club, New York, NY

2012 Helena Modjeska Award, Arts Orange County, CA

2011 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship

2010 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship

Barnett & Annalee Newman Foundation Fellowship

2009 Lux Art Institute, Artist in Residence, Encinitas, CA

Pilchuck, Artist in Residence, Seattle, WA

2003 McColl Center for Visual Art, Artist in Residence, Charlotte, NC

2002 Kyojima Artist in Residency Program, Tokyo, Japan

Ensemble Studio Theater, Artist in Residence (Summer), New York, NY

2001 California State Fullerton, Artist in Residence, Santa Ana, CA

2000 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant

NYC Art Commission Award for Excellence in Design

John Michael Kohler Arts & Industry Program, Artist in Residence, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

1994 Amalie Rothschild Award

Passage 7, 2023

Marble and gold leaf

11 x 2 1 ⁄ 2 x 3 in.

Passage 13 , 2015–23

Marble and gold leaf

10 1 ⁄ 2 x 22 1 ⁄ 2 x 2 3 ⁄ 4 in.

Public Co llection s

Jewish Museum; Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation, New York, NY

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, Nashville, TN

Weatherspoon Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC

Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC

Scripps College, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Claremont, CA

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

The United States Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq

Chapman University, Orange, CA

The Fidelty Collection, Boston, MA

Jacobs Medical Center, University of California, San Diego, CA

Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN

Catalina Museum for Art & History, Catalina Island, CA

Artists Presentations / Lectures / Panels

2022 CODAsummit, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL

2019 Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

2018 The Frost Museum; Breakfast in the Park , Featured Speaker, Miami, FL

Mid-South Sculpture Alliance; Elizabeth Turk , Knoxville, TN

MacArthur Foundation Conference, Chicago, IL

The Getty Center; Wonders of Art & Science: A Day of Discovery, Los Angeles, CA

2017 The Getty Center; The Getty 360 & MacArthur Fellows , Los Angeles, CA

Stanford University; The Red & The Black , Palo Alto, CA

Spencer Museum of Art; Research Integrated Art , University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

2016 Laguna College of Art & Design; Commencement Address , Laguna Beach, CA

MacArthur Foundation Conference, Chicago, IL

2015 Coastline Community College, Newport Beach, CA

Santa Ana Community College, Santa Ana, CA

2014 Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA

Scripps College, Claremont, CA

Harbor Day School, Carona Del Mar, CA

2013 The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

Lotos Club, New York, NY

2012 MacArthur Fellowship, The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread , Racine, WI

2011 Featured speaker, TEDxAtlanta “Creativ!ty”

2004 Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC

Passage 21, 2021–22

Marble and gold leaf

5 3 ⁄ 4 x 111 ⁄ 4 x 2 3 ⁄ 8 in.

Passage 15 , 2021–23

Marble and gold leaf design

7 x 8 1 ⁄ 4 x 3 3 ⁄ 8 in.

Elizabeth Finger printing

The Studley Press photography

All photography by Eric Stoner, except for Eric Baumgartner, pp. 12–13, 17, 18 (no. 17), 20 (installation view) cover

Passage 22, 2021

Marble and gold leaf

11 x 4 3 ⁄ 4 x 2 1 ⁄ 2 in inside front and back covers

Conceptual Evolution, Sketchbook Studies, 2020–23

© 2023 Hirschl & Adler Modern ISBN 978-1-937941-24-6 chl ISN #978-1-937941-22-2