Shelley Turley
Sound of Silence
February 5 – March 27, 2021

HOLDING Contemporary presents new paintings by Portland artist Shelley Turley. Sound of Silence is Turley’s first solo exhibition in a contemporary art gallery and opens Friday, February 5 and runs through Saturday  March 27. Gallery hours are by appointment Fridays and Saturdays. Contact us to schedule an appointment. Social distancing rules allow for no more than two visitors in the space at a time, and masks are required. 

Shelley Turley creates dreamlike, mysterious paintings that explore themes of displacement, longing, mourning, and spiritual reflection. Through Turley’s energetic and intuitively painted gestures, intimate or odd scenes emerge. Her figuration, landscapes, and interiors are Inspired by 1960s-70s cookbooks, soap operas, pop music, advertisements, and pagan ritual. Turley’s subject matter in the paintings include hypersexualized men, romantic gardens, and hazy spirits that never quite materialize, combining unsettled strangeness with a dark, playful humor. She constructs landscapes and interior scenes for her figures to inhabit; a created space to feel a sense of belonging through an imagined fantasy realm.

Works in Sound of Silence were created in isolation after long days of contemplation of one’s own darkness: in the midst of a global pandemic, a civil rights outcry, and chaotic political events. Turley’s artworks reflect on fantasies that keep one company in the context of solitude, alienation, and spiritual seeking.

Shelley Turley was born in a small town on the eastern edge of Arizona. She has since lived in Yuma, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA from the University of Utah, UT and has exhibited in New York, NY, Portland, OR, and Salt Lake City, UT. Turley lives and works in Portland. 

Photos by Mario Gallucci