Aaron Turner - Artwork

Artwork

Turner's artwork tends toward the abstract or surreal, often depicting strange or fantastic landscapes and structures. His work on album covers, concert posters, and other music-related graphics is distinct from typical work in heavy metal or rock graphic design. In part, this may be because of the way that Turner views his objectives in creating designs, which he has discussed on his blog in response to criticism of the clarity of text on one of his concert posters:

I also generally reject the idea that posters and album sleeves and t shirts have to be marketing tools with overly obvious type/graphics, as opposed to more artistically oriented pieces that invoke the true spirit of the music they are intended to represent. if the bands being represented aren't writing 3 minute pop songs with inane choruses that beat the listener into submission, why should the representative graphics serve that purpose? i like to think the audience that follows these bands isn't the type of audience that requires overly simplified/commercial imagery and type in order to draw their attention to the "product". it is precisely the type of corporate design mentality as exemplified by the statement above that i have striven to avoid with what i do in the realm of music related graphics. we're not trying to sell our music to wal-mart shoppers, so if you expect our graphic personality to fall in line with what you were taught in design school about corporate branding and "truly effective" type and illustration techniques you shall be continually disappointed. clean type has its time and place, but this poster which is meant to showcase the personality of our label and by extension the show itself isn't it. music related design can be art simply beyond the idea of selling something...

In 2008, Turner's artwork was featured in a FIFTY24SF Gallery group show entitled Catalyst. Turner has created album covers and liner note artwork for a variety of artists and bands, many of whom are signed to Hydra Head Records or Tortuga Recordings.

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  • 27 – Let the Light In
  • 5ive – 5ive, Telestic Disfracture
  • Aereogramme – Seclusion
  • Agoraphobic Nosebleed – PCP Torpedo, Frozen Corpse Stuffed with Dope
  • A Life Once Lost – The Fourth Plague: Flies
  • Beecher – Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • Bloodlet – Entheogen
  • Burst – Prey on Life
  • Cable – Northern Failures
  • Cave In – Antenna, Planets of Old, White Silence
  • Cavity – Laid Insignificant
  • Clouds – We Are Above You
  • Coalesce – There is Nothing New Under the Sun
  • Converge – Petitioning the Empty Sky, When Forever Comes Crashing
  • Craw – Bodies for Strontium 90
  • The Dillinger Escape Plan – The Dillinger Escape Plan
  • Drowningman – Drowningman Still Loves You
  • The Dukes of Nothing – War & Wine
  • Eugene Robinson – Fight
  • Hematovore – Untitled
  • The Hollomen – The Hollomen
  • The Hope Conspiracy – demo
  • Isis – Mosquito Control, The Red Sea, Sawblade, Celestial, SGNL>05, Oceanic, Live.01, Panopticon, Live.02, Oceanic Remixes and Reinterpretations, Live.03, Live.04, Clearing the Eye, In the Absence of Truth, Shades of the Swarm, "Not in Rivers, but in Drops", Wavering Radiant, Isis / Melvins
  • James Plotkin's Atomsmasher – Atomsmasher
  • Jesu – Silver, Lifeline, Conqueror, Jesu, Why Are We Not Perfect?
  • Jodis – Secret House
  • Johnny Truant – The Repercussions of a Badly Planned Suicide
  • KEN mode – Mongrel
  • Kid Kilowatt – Guitar Method
  • Knut – Terraformer, Wonder
  • Mare - Self-Titled EP
  • Milligram – Hello Motherfucker
  • Mistle Thrush – Drunk with You
  • Neurosis – Sovereign
  • Old Man Gloom – Meditations in B, Seminar II: The Holy Rites of Primitivism Regressionism, NO
  • Panic – Dying For It
  • Pelican – Australasia, The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw, City of Echoes
  • Premonitions of War – Left in Kowloon
  • Rosetta – The Galilean Satellites
  • Torche – Meanderthal
  • Tusk – Get Ready
  • Xasthur – All Reflections Drained
  • Zozobra – Harmonic Tremors, Bird of Prey

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