Ninah Turner is a Los Angeles-based oil painter who cut her teeth in the arts while studying at UC Berkeley, the University of the Arts London, and Maastricht University. When she’s not painting, you can find Ninah strolling her two bunnies around Beverly Hills and gathering inspiration for her work while traveling and exploring LA’s nightlife. When you follow Ninah’s work, it’s similar to following a little white rabbit of your own. Down the rabbit-hole and into a world of euphoric impressions, where feminine faces overlap one another in an undulating psychedelic song.
Q: When did you first start painting?
NINAH TURNER: I started drawing and painting as a kid as a way to entertain myself because we didn’t have cable. I took an art class my first year of junior college, and a teacher told me that I was pretty good, so that’s when I first started to take it seriously and see it as a potential career path.
Q: Your work started with two focuses: disembodied facial features (eyes and mouths) and women’s faces. Now, you’ve been able to blend the two distinct focuses into the abstract paintings you create today. I’d like to hear how you interpret your style evolution over the years.
NINAH TURNER: I’ve always been drawn to people’s eyes and mouths, so that’s what I wanted to paint. It was a good way to get those features down individually. My art turned more surrealist when I started combining women’s faces. It’s how I portray what I’m thinking about, whether that be self-love or past lives, and communicate the overall message of my art: human connection. I hope that by sharing the eyes and the mouth, the viewer can understand that about my work.
Q: Can you describe your process of creating one of your paintings from start to finish?
NINAH TURNER: I start by pinpointing the emotion that I want to portray, and then I decide on how many faces I want to use to make that or how many figures I want to be in the painting based on scale. Afterward, I come up with the composition. I try to be innovative each time and do something that I haven’t done before. The last thing I do is sketch it out on canvas and blend it with paint. I usually like to start by painting the eyes and mouths because those were my first loves.
Q: There’s a transcendent quality to your paintings. What kind of journey do you hope to take people on while they view them?
NINAH TURNER: Faces are one of the easiest things for a viewer to identify with, as opposed to something completely abstract. I want them to try and read the faces that they see and look inward to connect with the emotions that I’m trying to portray. The eyes I paint stare confrontationally at the viewer, which I hope makes the experience more personal and helps the viewer question what they’re looking at and how it makes them feel overall.
Q: Do each of your paintings correspond to a specific memory or time in your life?
NINAH TURNER: I would say that they relate to my deepest and favorite memories and, even more often, my dreams. I have hyper vivid dreams.
Q: Is there a message or feeling you hope to convey to your viewers when they look at one of your paintings?
NINAH TURNER: That we’re all connected – even if we see ourselves vastly different from one another. Even though we all live our own lives, they’re ultimately shared with other people on this Earth.
Q: You center many of your paintings around feminine faces. When you’re making them, do you draw from people you know or of people you imagined?
NINAH TURNER: They’re primarily people I’ve dreamt of, imagined or people that I’ve passed on the street that have subconsciously stuck with me. It’s not one person on the canvas, more so a mix of a bunch of people onto one face.
Q: Lastly, how would you describe your artwork’s style in three words?
NINAH TURNER: Surreal, ethereal, and sincere. And can I add in hopeful? ‘Cause, they’re hopeful too.
Discover more of Ninah’s work on Instagram @ninahturner and online at ninahturner.com
