Elizabeth Turk is a sculptor who transforms her signature medium of marble into strikingly intricate, seemingly
weightless objects that defy expectations of a traditionally monumental, heavy, and prone-to-fracture material.
Inspired by the challenges the hard stone poses for an artist interested in rendering nature’s most delicate
forms, she has achieved an extremely fine level of detail in an often-unforgiving substance. Turk employs a
variety of electric grinders, files, and small dental tools with a dexterous touch to create her sculptures. Turk
creates a surprising sense of buoyancy and undulating movement in her recent series of marble ribbons
suspended in midair. With these and other visually arresting feats of precision, Turk is pushing the physical
limits of her material and reviving a classical medium for contemporary artistic exploration.
A 2010 MacArthur Fellow, Elizabeth Turk received a B.A. (1983) from Scripps College and an M.F.A. (1994)
from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibits at
such venues as the Mint Museum of Art (North Carolina), the University of Virginia Art Museum, the
American Institute of Architecture (New York), and the National Museum of Women in the Arts
(Washington, DC).
