September 7 – 30, 2023
Artist Li Turner attempts to sort out the gender question in In Search of Identity. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time. Consequently, this term is used broadly to denote a range of identities that may not correspond to established biological ideas of male and female. Turner’s series of watercolor paintings explore identities that stray from the more stringent biological definition.
From a biological stand point, gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender, in contrast, refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviors and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. In Search of Identity explores how gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.
In Search of Identity highlights different genders and explores the intersections between gender’s social and economic inequalities as well as how gender-based discrimination overlaps with other factors of discrimination.
In Search of Identity will be on display at Gallery 110 from September 7 – 30, 2023. Gallery hours are Thursday – Saturday from 12pm – 5pm and by appointment. Please join us for the First Thursday Art Walk on September 7, 2023 from 4-8pm.
On the work of Li Turner
A review of In Search of Identity written by Saundra Fleming
August 25th, 2023 / Seattle, WA
A social critic for contemporary moral subjects, Li Turner finds herself squarely in the art
historical realms of Honore Daumier, William Hogarth or Barbara Kruger – racism and sexism
are her targets. She has stated that she hopes to focus our conscience onto all forms of
prejudice, ageism and stigmatization. How does she do this?
Her works can be seen as an articulated form of “Technicolor” and the intensity of her palette
seems to reflect her continual effort to delineate, and unambiguously so, a transformation of
morality into artistic products. You want to access the exceptional clarity she provides in her
watercolors and gouache paintings because one senses she is holding your hand and steering
us through a kind of mine field that has nearly always threatened our humanity.
There is no avoiding Li Turner’s message. Ethics and art woven together are her focus.
Scapegoating and stigmatization are the things to shine a spotlight upon. And the ambition of
this work is no less than to support each of us in a evolution of the spirit!
– Saundra Fleming
8/25/23
Seattle, WA
