Tyler Turkle

Tyler Turkle was born May 29, 1947 in Alliance, Ohio. He received his B.A. in History in 1970 from Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio and studied cinematography at Kent State University. From 1975 to 1987 he taught art, photography, video and filmmaking in the Florida State University College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance and most recently conducted graduate seminars in the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts. His films have appeared in national and international film festivals while his paintings and sculptures have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Turkle first exhibited his artworks at White Columns and CABLE in Greenwich Village and later at the Greenberg Wilson Gallery in SoHo. He is cited for his innovative use of liquid acrylic and for developing the technique of controlled pouring to produce large scale paintings and sculptures. Turkle is also credited for assigning the term "Plastometry" to a theoretical framework connecting life and art.

Turkle was selected for the 41st and 44th Biennial Exhibitions of Contemporary American Painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, as well as exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, California; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the Rooseum, Malmö, Sweden; and the New Orleans Museum of Art. His artwork has also been widely shown in exhibitions organized by the independent curatorial team of Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo.

Turkle is actively involved in projects both nationally and locally. He is recognized as a volunteer filmmaker for Steven Spielberg's organization, Survivors of the SHOAH/Visual History Foundation and he served as a trustee of the Edward F. Marsicano Literary Trust. From 1995 to 2000, he was the Artistic Director of the Tallahassee-Leon County Cultural Resources Commission and served as a member of the CRC Board of Directors. Prior to becoming the Executive Director of the Leon County Schools' Foundation in 1999, Turkle served as a Foundation Board member from 1995 to 1998 and as Chairman of the Board for the 1998-1999 term. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Research in Art at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and he is a member of the Florida Supreme Court “Arts in the Court” Advisory Committee. He served as an at-large member of the Consortium of Florida Education Foundations and the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science Acquisition and Collections Committee. Turkle is the former Executive Director of Big Bend Habitat for Humanity in Tallahassee, Florida. He is currently the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County, California.

Turkle is also a filmmaker. While at Kent State, He was exposed to the avant garde/experimental films and filmmakers of the day - Richard Myers, Bruce Connor, Stan Brakhage, Mike Kuchar and George Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Gunvor Nelson, Lenny Lipton, Ed Emshwiller, among others. Turkle’s main interest, then and now, is the short documentary film and video, mostly constructed around on-camera interviews. His interest in the moving image corresponds to his interest in the still image as both play back and forth across the fields of painting and sculpture. Over the last thirty-five years, his films and videos have explored subjects as far ranging as Yo-Yo Champion Lance Lynch; novelist Harry Crews; the Rattlesnake Roundup in Whigham, Georgia; the "Swine Time" festival in Climax, Georgia; and the football rivalry between Florida State University and the University of Florida.

Turkle’s films and videos have been shown with his paintings and sculptures in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe including the San Francisco Museum of Art, Herbert F. Johnson Museum - Cornell University, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Many of the films and videos have also been shown in film festivals including the New York Independent Filmmakers Exposition, Bellevue(WA) Film Festival, Athens International Film Festival, Penn State Film Festival, and the Sherwood Oaks(CA) Experimental Film Festival. Turkle is the nephew of children's book author and illustrator Brinton Turkle (1915-2003), winner of the Caldecott Honor in 1970.