Episode 9 – Experimental Artist Scott Turri – Solastalgia
Hailing from suburban Philadelphia, where he spent his formative years, Turri now calls Pittsburgh home and has become enmeshed in its regional art community. He has had a broad range of artistic experiences: as a self-taught drummer playing in punk rock, to an improvising percussionist in a performance art band, writing for New Art Examiner, BOMB, and Afterimage magazines, to currently concentrating primarily on painting and experimental animation. He is represented by James Gallery. Along with these pursuits, Turri is also an educator and holds a full-time lecturer position in the Studio Arts Department at the University of Pittsburgh.
Scott and I discuss his experimental animation Solastalgia.
Scott explains Solastalgia, “I step into muddy ground and spot families of deer examining me while their jaws move in a rhythmic circular motion munching on new leaf growth and the distant steel mills are behemoths on the horizon. I look through the void to get to the memory. The rituals start in the bedroom. The pill shape comes from the laundry baskets filled with stuffed animals on top of our wardrobe. The void is beckoning. Sometimes we are on the inside, sometimes on the outside. The interior is my bedroom, where I dream. The pills are my eyes.”
