PENUMBRA WORKSPACE PROGRAM | US-Based Artist | 2024
Aaron Turner
Image © Aaron Turner. Courtesy of the artist.
“My work looks at the legacy of Fredrick Douglas and his use of photography, the overall
narrative of photo history, and 19th-century alternative photo printing processes as a means of dissemination.
I utilize abstract geometric principles of repetition in reproducing the same image of Frederick Douglass in various 19th-century printing processes to highlight and recontextualize Douglass’ position in history as the most photographed person of the 19th century.
This critical history of representation is essential to me not only as a black person but also as a black man and black image maker using photography. It is vital to note Douglass’ innovative use of photography so close to the medium’s invention and to contrast that against contemporary photographic technology; what would it take to be the most photographed person of the 21st century?”
Aaron Turner is an artist, educator, and independent curator based in Northwest Arkansas. He uses photography as a transformative process to understand the ideas of home and resilience in two main areas of the U.S., the Arkansas and Mississippi Deltas. Aaron also uses the 4x5 view camera to create still-life studies on identity, history, blackness as material, and abstraction. Aaron received his M.A. from Ohio University and an M.F.A from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He was a 2018 Light Work Artists-in-Residence at Syracuse University, a 2019 EnFoco Photography Fellow, a 2020 Visual Studies Workshop Project Space Artists-in-Residence, a 2020 Artist 360 Mid-America Arts Alliance Grant Recipient, the 2021 Houston Center for Photography Fellowship Recipient, a 2021 Creators Lab Photo Fund recipient from Google’s Creator Labs & the Aperture Foundation,2022 Darryl Chappell Foundation photographer-in-residence at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and a 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council.
SPONSORS
This program is supported by Henry Nias Foundation, Joy of Giving Something, The Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, and Roz Leibowitz.
