April 22–May 21, 2022
Steve Turner is pleased to present Follow the Moon, a solo exhibition by Jackson, Mississippi-based Claire Whitehurst. It features recent relief paintings that depict colorful moon-like orbs in various states of fullness and eclipse, tree rings, eggs, stones, and rainbows, each painted on linen that was stretched over wooden supports that the artist carved to have undulating depth. Shadows appear at different times of day, causing the paintings to have their own daily phases. According to Whitehurst, the works are inspired by nostalgia and her return to Mississippi. They relate to transition, personal and geographic, to growth and decay, and the longing to return home.
Claire Whitehurst (born 1991, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) earned an MFA at the University of Iowa (2020) after earning a BFA at the University of Mississippi (2015). She draws from the landscape and atmosphere of the South, exploring queer narrative, memory, time, and identity through color, form, surface and space. She has had solo exhibitions in New Orleans, Iowa City and Oxford, Mississippi as well as at Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2021).
Born 1991, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Lives and works in Jackson, Mississippi
Education
2020
MFA, University of Iowa, Iowa City
2019
MA, University of Iowa, Iowa City
2017
Post Baccalaureate, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia
2015
BFA, University of Mississippi, Oxford
Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
2022
Atinati Gallery, Tbilsi, Georgia (upcoming)
Follow the Moon, Steve Turner, Los Angeles
2021
Mississippi Shade, Steve Turner, Los Angeles
a step, a sieve, a rung of ladder, Aquarium Gallery, New Orleans
2020
I Have Considered the Lilies, University of Iowa, Iowa City
2019
Duck, Duck, Goose, Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery, Waverly, Iowa
2018
Folie à Deux, Public Space One, Iowa City
The Space Between, 5th Floor Gallery, University of Iowa, Iowa City
2015
Act of Balance, Gallery 119, Oxford, Mississippi
Group Exhibitions
2022
Growing Up Queer in the South, Greenville Museum of Art, South Carolina (upcoming)
Galerie Charradeau, Paris (upcoming)
Between Thought and Expression, Spalding Nix Fine Art, Atlanta
2021
Speculative Futures, University of Wisconsin, Madison NADA Miami (with Printed Matter + EXILE Books)
Magnolia Ball, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans
Flat Files 2021, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn
2020
Flat Rate Contemporary 7, Flat Rate Contemporary
Hope Revolution, Stay Home Gallery and Residency, Paris, Tennesse
Making a Way, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, Indiana
2019
Memory Palace, Hastings Collge + Young Space National Juried Exhibition, Hastings, Nebraska
2018
Small Works Show, 440 Gallery, Brooklyn
National Wet Paint Biennial (with Zhou B. Art Center), Chicago
Paper in Particular National Exhibition, Columbia College, Columbia
Graduate Exchange, sUgAR Gallery, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
2017
Magnolia Ball, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans
Deep Show, The Art Factory, Memphis
Annual Students Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia Poly-tiks, Gallery 8, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia
2016
Atrapa un Sueno, Ko’ox Boon Galería, Merida, Mexico
2015
One Night Stand, Motel Pop-Up Show, Oxford
Legacy of a Mississippi Master, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson
.PNG (Portable Nature Graphics), Southside Gallery, Oxford
Grants, Residencies and Awards
2022
Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Maine
2021
Drum Machine Editions Publishing Residency, North Carolina
2020
Mildred Pelzer Lynch Fellowship, University of Iowa
2018
Stanley Foundation Grant for International Research, France
Bibliography
2021
“mirror drawings,” Drum Machine Editions, November 2
“Vol. 9,” Fools Magazine, January 29
2020
“ArtMaze Magazine Anniversary Issue 20,” ArtMaze Magazine, November 14
“No. 143, Midwest Issue,” New American Paintings, August
2019
“Issue #17,” Create! Magazine, October
2018
Boyle, William. “The By and By, It’s Later Than You Think,” Oxford American
