"Is there such a thing as a 'natural history of colours' and to what extent is it analogous to a natural history of plants? Isn't the latter temporal, the former non-temporal?"
-Wittgenstein


TURN Gallery presents Andy Mister in Some Things Last a Long Time, opening Wednesday, March 8th, 2023. This marks his second solo exhibition at the gallery. Expanding his practice beyond works on paper, Mister introduces a new body of work featuring pastel paintings on linen.


Continuing to investigate the boundary between mechanical and manual reproduction, Mister works with images appropriated from both contemporary and vintage photographs, examining how meaning is created or lost through the act of “copying”. In this series, he furthers his exploration of “drawn paintings” by working with a limited but vibrant color palette and experimenting with tone and material rather than scale and subject matter. The show takes its title from the Daniel Johnston song of the same name. The first lines are, “your picture is still on my wall / the colors are bright / bright as ever”.


Mister was originally inspired by the book “The Art of Arranging Flowers: a Complete Guide to Japanese Ikebana”, specifically the small black and white photographs used to illustrate certain “lessons” in flower arranging. He later supplemented these materials with images from other instructional flower arranging books, mostly out of print and often out of fashion. In recent years, Mister has been interested in strategies of appropriation and recontextualization of imagery used by the Pictures Generation, moving away from contemporary media and culture to focus on art historical references.


Andy Mister (1979) received a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy from Loyola University New Orleans, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. He has exhibited at galleries and institutions including Lowell Ryan Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco, CA; Second Street, Charlottesville, VA; Commune Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Turn Gallery, New York, NY; Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY; and Dieu Donné, Brooklyn, NY, among others. Mister has published two books: Heroes & Villains (Cultural Society, 2015), a book of drawings, and Liner Notes (Station Hill, 2013), a lyric essay. He has been awarded residencies from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Andy Mister’s works have been reviewed and discussed in Hyperallergic, artReal, Frontrunner Magazine, Quiet Lunch, Artnet, BOMB Magazine, Whitewall.art, COOL HUNTING, Art Now LA, and Monster Children amongst others.


Some Things Last a Long Time will open Wednesday, March 8th from 6 - 8 pm. The show will be on view until April 15th. We are located on the 2nd floor of 32 East 68th Street NY, NY 10065. The gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday 12 - 6pm. For further information, contact Annika at ap@turngallerynyc.com.