For Immediate Release:  May 27, 2011

Long Beach Museum of Art Presents
Ray Turner: Population
Hundreds of Portraits by American Artist Ray Turner
Thursday, June 16 – Sunday, September 11, 2011
Opening Reception: June 16^th 6:00 – 9:00pm

LOS ANGELES, CA — Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA) presents Ray Turner: Population, a solo exhibition of nearly 300 luminous portraits by American artist Ray Turner, opening Thursday, June 16, 2011. The series invites viewers to contemplate identity – individually as well as collectively. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 16^th from 6:00 to 9:00pm.  The exhibition will continue through Sunday, September 11, 2011. Curated by Art Critic Peter Frank and LBMA Executive Director Ron Nelson, the exhibit will also include a selection of photographic interpretations, works on paper, and three-dimensional pieces by Turner. Population will travel to museums across the country and internationally well into 2013 and continue to grow as Turner adds new portraits to the project from each community exhibiting the work. LBMA is located at 2300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90803.  For more information please visit http://rayturner.us.

The portraits in Population, executed primarily in oil paint on glass from models, feature mostly California subjects painted over the last four years, including 60 new works depicting Long Beach community members. The growing project also includes 150 portraits that Turner painted previously for the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) in 2009.  Portraits from the Long Beach community include: the mayor, police commissioner, museum director, harbor commissioner, artists, and local philanthropists.  Also included in the body of work are 28 “homies” – young people affiliated with nonprofit Homeboy Industries looking for alternatives to gang violence.

portraits from Ray Turner: Population

A “population” is the set of beings inhabiting a location – organisms belonging to the same species and living in the same geographical area. The term refers to an objective, scientific accounting of human beings. Turner’s Population, however, does not favor representational precision over interpretation.  His works search for the inner essence and character of his subjects over physical accuracy. Fluid, much like notions of identity, Turner’s textural paintings vacillate between realism and abstraction. Population entices the viewer to decipher each sitter individually – the facial features, expressions, and emotions as captured in Turner’s sculptural brushwork – as well as search for relationships across the entire group of works.

The psychologically powerful LBMA Population installation presents two interconnected series of works by Turner that function together as a conceptual whole.  In the first, Turner has painted the essence of his subjects on uniform glass squares by carefully studying photographic data of his models.  In the complementary “Good Man/Bad Man” series of works, Turner is working expressively from his imagination.

Facial topography informs our opinions of who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad.’  Co-curator Peter Frank explains, “Our prejudices, Turner deduces, derive from our facial preoccupation, our need to compare one face with another in order to determine everything from superficial beauty to the nature of the soul.”

With underpinnings in occidental art history, most notably Expressionism and Fauvism, Population’s antecedents include the tempestuous works of Georges Rouault and Vincent Van Gogh, as well as the violent disfigurement of Francis Bacon.

An exquisite 168-page, full-color, hardcover monograph published by the PMCA, with essays by B.R. Gilbert, James Scarborough and Roberta Carasso, PhD, accompanies the exhibition along with an all-new, 128-page, comprehensive catalog specific to the current LBMA presentation with an essay written by Peter Frank and foreword by Ron Nelson. Turner’s project is generously sponsored by Thrive Foundation for Youth.

After the Long Beach exhibition, Population, conceived as a five-to-ten year project, travels to Akron Art Museum (OH), Whatcom Museum (Bellingham, WA), Tacoma Museum of Glass (WA), Alexandria Museum of Art (VA), Wichita Art Museum (KS), Huntington Museum of Art (WV), and Missoula Art Museum (MT). Prior to each exhibition, Turner will travel to every location in advance to create new portraits from a cross-section of the populous for inclusion into the growing body of work.

Ray Turner –
Ray Turner lives and works in Pasadena, California. He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in 1985 where he subsequently taught for 13 years as a professor of painting and drawing.  His work has been exhibited regularly in the United States since 1990.  In 2010, his paintings were shown at the Pasadena Museum of California Art alongside those of Wayne Thiebaud.  Turner is represented in Los Angeles by Rivera & Rivera and by Toomey Tourell Fine Art in San Francisco.

Rivera & Rivera –
Rivera & Rivera is a contemporary art gallery located in Los Angeles, California, housed in a space designed by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s architect, Arata Isozaki.  The gallery represents mid-career and established artists and has helped foster the careers of influential contemporary artists.  In 2011, the gallery’s list of represented artists includes Ray Turner, Marquis Lewis (RETNA), Robert Standish, Miguel Osuna and Jeff Kowatch.  The gallery has hosted a wide range of international exhibitions, from a survey of the Chicano influence on Latin Art including works from Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, The Date Farmers, and Ismael Vargas, to a survey of foreign and expatriate British artists including Tobias Keene and Pete Stern.  In addition, the gallery has collaborated on the international exhibition of several urban artists including RETNA, Miles Macgregor (El Mac), Augustine Kofie.  Located in the heart of West Hollywood’s Art & Design District at 454 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90048, the gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 11:00am to 6:00pm.  For more information please call 310-713-1635 or visit http://riveraandrivera.com.

Long Beach Museum of Art –
Located on a magnificent bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the Long Beach Museum of Art features a historic mansion and carriage house, expansive galleries and gardens, oceanfront dining at Claire’s at the Museum, and a unique museum store.  In addition to changing exhibitions, the museum offers extensive educational programs for children and adults, musical programs, festivals, and other special events.  LBMA is open Thursday 11:00am to 8:00pm, and Friday to Sunday 11:00am to 5:00pm.  Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for students and seniors age 62 and older, free for LBMA members and children under 12, and free for everyone on Thursdays from 5:00pm to 8:00pm and all day on Fridays.  Free parking is available in the museum parking lot on Ocean Blvd., one block west of the main entrance. For more information, call 562-439-2119 or visit www.lbma.org.

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For more information, images, or to request an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada (née Hasty) at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.

work from the "Good Man/Bad Man" series within Ray Turner: Population