About the Exhibition

Khari Turner’s work expresses a mystical connection to water as a repository of Black American identity. To reflect the composition of the human body, he similarly mixes paints composed of almost 60% water, drawn from rivers, lakes, and oceans that have either a historical or personal association with Black people. His translucent, colorful portraits reverberate with fluid drips of paint that for Turner express the universal force that connects his ancestors’ spiritual and physical relationship to place.

In its very title, Mirroring Reflection, Turner’s MOWA exhibition foregrounds his interpretation of the spirit, the body, and the expansive knowledge embedded in water. His aim is to merge this ancient basic element and the human life cycle into a single coming-of-age story. Personifying water, he views rivers as children, lakes as adolescents, and the ocean as the elderly. Bodies of water contain boundless knowledge and reflect on one another metaphorically, one flowing into the next in a continuous cycle of life and generating the illusion of infinity.

Mirroring Reflection is Milwaukee-born Turner’s first solo museum show in his home state of Wisconsin following his international debut earlier this year at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Top: Khari Turner, Family Pool Party, 2022 (detail). 72 x 48 in. Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, sand, African mahogany, water from: Coast of Senegal, lower Manhattan docks, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee River, Pacific Ocean. Lent by the artist

Side, top: Khari Turner, Baby’s Tune, 2022. 36 in. Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, sand, water from: Coast of Senegal, lower Manhattan docks, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee River, and the Pacific Ocean. Lent by the artist

Side, bottom: Khari Turner, River Steps, 2022 (detail). 48 x 72 in. Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, African mahogany, water from: Coast of Senegal, lower Manhattan docks, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee River, Pacific Ocean. Lent by the artist