WWWAC SPOTLIGHT:
Ralph Turturro’s Paintings Show Another Side to a Talented Famiglia by Judith Gross
If the name is familiar, you’d most likely link it with acting, not painting. Artist Ralph Turturro doesn’t mind talking about his famous family one bit, as long as you also pay attention to his paintings, currently headlining a show at the Windsor Whip Works Art Center through the end of this month.
Turturro is an art teacher in Greene, NY and calls Cortland his home after growing up in working-class Queens, NY—a background that appears in some of relative John Turturro’s films.
Yes, that John Turturro—Barton Fink, O Brother Where Art Thou, Miller’s Crossing and even OCD detective Adrian Monk’s reclusive brother Ambrose on the USA Network’s popular series.
It was Ralph’s uncle, Dominic, who turned him onto painting at an early age, converting an abandoned Manhattan synagogue into an art studio.
“I was around 10 years old when I used to go to my uncle’s synagogue-studio; it was intoxicating—great memories, the smell of the place, just the whole aura,” Turturro said.
Uncle Dominic’s daughter—Ralph’s cousin—is actress Aida Turturro—who played mobster Tony Soprano’s sister on the acclaimed HBO series. John is another cousin the family tree, as is John’s younger brother Nicholas Turturro, whom you might remember as a regular on the TV series, NYPD Blue.
The creativity, it appears, runs in the family.
“The biggest things in our family were movies and art. My uncle was a painter, my grandfather was an amateur painter,” said Turturro. “John and I did impressions because my father did; John’s mother was a singer and her brother played instruments--there are a lot of creative genes.”
Turturro’s paintings are abstracts done in acrylics, flowing with vivid patches of earthy colors, geometric shapes, multiple layers and textures. He started with portraits while studying at the University of Wisconsin on a football scholarship; then switched to abstracts while working on his Masters at NY’s Pratt Institute.
“There was just something about painting realistically that was starting to not ring true to me, it became a question of how good can you really paint. It’s about being able to express the things that you think about and feel and I couldn’t do it using realism,” Turturro said.
View Ralph Turturro’s paintings at the Windsor Whip Works Art Center through the end of this month. Open house Saturday, April 17, 1-4 p.m. Meet the artist at a gallery talk, Saturday, May 1st, 7-9 p.m. with wine and refreshments.