Ralph Turturro, born in Ozone Park, Queens, in 1957 and trained at Pratt Institute, has been painting for over 40 years. Growing up, he says, “my entire family dialogued with each other as if they were in the movies.” And he describes his painting as a form of storytelling. His uncle, Domenick Turturro, a painter, was an important early influence.

Ralph Turturro on Painting

My work always represents me: my loves, crushes, dreams, and the daily intake of stimuli: music, film, conversation, reading, and glances over my shoulder at whatever is in the periphery at the moment. But in the studio I let go of all this and approach the space in which I am to work with awe, so I might learn with a beginner’s mind. Painting is then to me a child’s game, played as if it is the greatest adventure. In a mark-making dance with the wide-open surface spaces, I’m responding to each mark, each obstacle and texture and color that appears during the process.

When I look back over my shoulder at the piles of work, I can’t help feeling how much time has passed and how much paint, color, and surface has been changed, but mostly how much has been lost. There is that emptiness to it all; a deep, never-ending, sometimes wonderful emptiness that continues to bring forth a very particular urgency; a need to be filling, attending, and crashing into the chaos that is life and its unending mysteries.