Primitive yet Complex!

Janet Sullivan Turner earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Michigan State University, cum laude in just three years. She pursues her life and art with the same vigor and passion. Married shortly upon graduation, she like many women packed up her tools and raised her family. Following her husband’s retirement from the Marine Corps in 1976 and their relocation to the Philadelphia area, Turner took this as an opportunity to reactivate a career that had been on hiatus for more than 20 years.

And what a reactivation, in little over a 25 year period Turner has exhibited in more than 90 solo and small group exhibitions. Exhibiting from Maine to California. her work has been seen in the San Diego Art Institute to the New England Center for Contemporary Art. Some of her collectors include The Kimmel Center, Bryn Mawr College, Rosemont College, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Blue Cross, Blue Shield and the Burroughs Corporation (Unisys). Turner has received awards from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts to her most recent a Lifetime Honorary Membership from the Philadelphia-Tri State Artists Equity Association. According to Victoria Donohoe, “Her style flirts knowingly as well with the primitive. Yet as a complex accomplished patternmaker, Turner weaves together the formal elements of design with skill and assurance at times employing swift, rich color that is in the best sense decorative”. According to Burt Wasserman, “Throughout the decades that Turner has worked as a serious artist, she’s never been content to stand still. She is not committed for life to only one single overarching style. Instead, she has explored a variety of media and techniques with conviction and intelligence…

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