Michele Tejuola Turner
EDUCATION
1974-1978 THE COLUMBUS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN Columbus, Ohio
Degree-Bachelor of Fine Arts
Major: Advertising
AWARDS / RECOGNITIONS VISUAL ART FIELD
2005 Society For Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA
2004 Minnie Evans Award from Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, NC
2002 North Carolina Fellowship recipient, North Carolina Arts Council.
2001 Work shown in The Shattered Gourd, Yoruba Forms in Twentieth Century American Art.
Written by Moyo Okediji, curator of African, African American, and Oceanic Arts at the Denver Art
Museum. Book features artists, Elizabeth Catlett, Howardena Pindell and Ademola Olugebefola.
2000 Awarded a one month residency by the McColl Center for Visual Art to study printmaking at the
Caversham Centre in South Africa. The Caversham printing project allowed me the time to re-discover
design and color on the two dimensional surface using the screen printing process. This process compliments
the work I’ve done on gourds because of the simple yet complex build-up of shapes and color.
2000 Commissioned to carve gourd for the American Embassy in Uganda, Africa
1995-96 North Carolina Fellowship recipient, North Carolina Arts Council.
1994 Featured on cover of national magazine AMERICAN VISIONS as one of 1994’s “Artist to Watch”
1993 Arts International Travel Grant, to study directly under the elder gourd artists in Nigeria, Africa. This
project took place in Nigeria to connect me to a culture I’ve studied and represented in my own
work in this country. I traveled to the town of Kano to study Islamic techniques and design, and to
the town of Oyo which is the seat of Yoruba culture to learn traditional styles and religious functions
of the gourd.
1991-92 Folklife Project Grant, North Carolina Arts Council, project was to carve a series of gourds documenting
African stories on the Ancient Warriors of Ile-Ife, which focused on the Yoruba thought on power.
EXHIBITIONS
2004 McColl Center/Hickory Museum, Charlotte/Hickory, NC fellowship show
2004 Neighborhood Public Art Project, Arts & Science Council, Charlotte, NC
2004 Airlie Gardens - Minnie Evans project, Wilmington, NC
2004 In Praise Of Our Mothers, Franklin G. Burroughs - Simeon B. Chapin Museum, Myrtle Beach, SC
2002 In Praise Of Our Mothers, Louise Cameron Wells Museum, Wilmington, NC
2002-03 Another Africa, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh, PA
2001 The Hourglass Project: Baggage, Spirit Square/McColl Center for Art, Charlotte, NC
Aug - City Gallery Chastain, Atlanta, GA,
Jan - Roswell Visual Arts Center (with Fulton County Arts Council), Roswell, Georgia, USA
Feb - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Gabarone, Botswana
April - Frans Masereel Centre, Kasterlee, Belgium
April - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
May - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Maputo, Mozambique
June - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Cape Town, ,South Africa
July - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Durban, South Africa
Aug - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Sep - Alliance Française/ French Cultural Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
2000 American Embassy in Uganda, Africa
1998 The Arts Center, Hendersonville, NC
1996 St. John’s Museum of Art, Wilmington, NC, fellowship show
1996 Fayetteville Museum of Art, Fayetteville, NC
1996 Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory, NC
1996 Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
1995 Christa Faut Gallery, Davidson, NC
1995 Waterworks Visual Arts Center, Salisbury, NC
1995 Beaufort County Arts Council, Washington, NC
1994 Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem, NC
1994 Museum of Natural History, Raleigh, NC
1994 Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
1993 YMI Cultural Center Gallery, Asheville, NC
1993 Spirit Square Center for the Arts, Charlotte, NC
1992 World Gallery, Asheville, NC
Michele Tejuola Turner
Listen to Michele Tejuola Turner, folk and gourd artist
