Artist - Jarrod Turner

By Natalie Downey

Columbus native Jarrod Turner is finding his place on the local art scene, and his unique contributions to folk art add new hues to the creative renaissance in our community. Over the past few years many people found that the pandemic shifted their lives in a new direction. For Jarrod, it led to a discovery that would change his life.

Jarrod among faces

Born and raised in Columbus, for many years Jarrod expressed himself through playing music in a band. When he found himself spending more time at home, he began looking for another creative outlet. On a trip to Summerville, GA with his wife, Jarrod spent some time in late folk artist Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden, an eclectic and captivating collection of sculptures, buildings and paintings Finster created in his backyard.

You Better Watch Your Happy Home

“I fell in love with his art and his story, and folk art,” Jarrod recalls. “I became obsessed with the local, Georgia, southern folk art scene,” Jarrod explains. He returned home and thought a lot about Finster’s art. “I even dreamed about it. I wanted to do something.”

As his interest in folk art took shape, Jarrod began making snakes out of sticks and immersing himself in the world of folk art. He took a tour of Butch Anthony’s Museum of Wonder in Seale, Alabama, and met the local legend in person as they spent some time talking about Jarrod’s budding interest.

“I’m the type of person that when I get into something, I’m all the way in,” Jarrod explains. “I just got the bug for it, and it bit me hard, so I started doing what came naturally to me. People seemed to like it and it motivated me to keep going.” Organically, Jarrod’s art and personal style took shape.

Working with what he can scavenge, Jarrod uses items like roofing tin, lamp shades, vintage bottles, and antique frames to create his signature style of art. “I work with what I can find,” he says. “It’s fun how these pieces come about without me trying to seek anything out.” Jarrod’s full time work in home remodeling gives him the chance to find materials that he conceptualizes into art pieces. In using vintage items with their own past lives, sometimes gathered from estate sales and thrift stores, Jarrod feels he brings a sense of community into his art. “It’s as much theirs as it is mine,” he says.

Set up at Big Oaks Pottery Winter Sale from 2022

For one of his pieces, Jarrod incorporated hundreds of keys from an old keyring he found at a job site. He also has a friend who gave him a collection of vintage bottles, gathered just on the chance it could be used in some new art. Jarrod feels that in using an array of items he finds or is given, he’s weaving a story of the community into his work, perhaps joining worlds together that wouldn’t have found their way into the same story if he hadn’t made them into one united work.

The result of Jarrod’s dive into the rabbit hole has been a collection of captivating, colorful, visceral, and thought-provoking works. While his pieces are eye-catching and visually entertaining, they also tell a story. “The storytelling I do with my art is of the balance of up and down, good and bad, the concept of the devil and the angel. You can’t have one without the other,” Jarrod says.

Sometimes Evil Comes As A Man Of Peace

As his art has evolved, Jarrod noticed an emerging motif that finds its way into many of his pieces: a penetrating pair of eyes. To him, the eyes carry a feeling of paranoia that hints at the feeling of being watched in the modern day due to the prevalence of cameras and surveillance at every corner.

Native Shadow

“Sometimes we feel like all eyes are on us,” he says. Taking everyday, beautiful scenes, Jarrod adds what he calls a “twinge of weirdness.”

Ultimately, Jarrod hopes people will interpret his art and feel in their own way. “It’s all how you see it,” he says. “It’s interpretive. I can tell people what I think it means, but I also want people to tell me what it means to them.”

12 Jurors

His characters can appear androgynous and ambiguous, their expressions giving a different meaning to different viewers. While Jarrod feels the eyes often look sad or paranoid, he finds it interesting that some people say they look happy.

Artist Jarrod Turner

photo taken by Charley Windham

Jarrod’s work has been included in shows with Artists Anonymous, Heritage Art Center, and King Gallery. He currently has artwork in King Gallery (3211 Howard Ave) and will participate in the Anon Art Festival at Vintageville (1301 6th Ave) on May 27.

Traditionally, folk artists had their art in their own homes, and people visited them to view and purchase their work. “You literally bought stuff off their wall,” Jarrod explains. Following a similar setup, Jarrod enjoys having people interested in his art contact him to schedule a visit to his home and rummage through his work. Folk art is personal, local, and deeply human. Jarrod’s approach to his work carries those same qualities.

Additionally, his work can be seen on his Instagram account @ jjaarrrrooddttuurrnneerr.

Jarrod Turner

Jarrod says the community has been extremely supportive of his work, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to tell his stories through his art and be a part of the art world here in Columbus. “I’m just lucky to be here,” Jarrod says.