ALEX TURNER

HIS LIFE

Alex was born in Vancouver in 1940, his parents having met the previous year at that city’s Locarno Beach. When Alex was five, he and his family moved to a small chicken farm in Haney, BC. Unable to make a go of the poultry business, in 1953 they relocated to a small house in Harrison Hot Springs, BC, which Alex and his family maintained for the next fifty-seven years. After graduating from Agassiz High School, the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design) and the University of British Columbia, Alex taught in Toronto at the Art Centre of Central Technical School, where for twenty-four years he was a profound influence on his students. During this time he was a working artist, exhibiting in Ontario and BC. He passed away on May 31, 2019.

He has said of his method: “I’m interested in how close to abstraction I can push the original image. These compositions seek an alignment of visual elements into an abstract whole. The results are often more like paintings or etchings than photography.”