Originally a fine-metal sculptural artist, Nogojiwanong-Peterborough artist Gillian Turnham became interested in tessellating geometric designs and eventually on the complex geometric patterns of the Islamic tradition. She will be discussing the Islamic art tradition in a six-episode series to be broadcast on Trent Radio on February 6, 2022 as part her her “Your Radio is Their Stage” artist residency. (Photo courtesy of Gillian Turnham)
When Nogojiwanong-Peterborough artist Gillian Turnham first encountered Islamic tradition in 2012, it wasn’t something she initially explored artistically. Her engagement with the geometric patterns in the Islamic artistic tradition came later, stemming from an exploration of esoteric Islam.
By the time Turnham came across and became curious about Islamic geometric patterns — what drives them and how they are constructed — she had established art design and Islamic tradition with separate roots. Nevertheless, from first working with her hands as a child in England, to designing and building art in the PCVS arts program in Peterborough, to her focus on architecture and ornamental art after graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the turn to traditional Islamic art was a natural extension of her creative life.
“It opened up a whole entire world for me,” Turnham recalls. “And since that point, almost everything I’ve done artistically has been Islamic geometry.”
VIDEO: Samples of Gillian Turnham’s work [embedded content]
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Turnham hopes to open that world for listeners with a six-episode radio series she is producing during her Trent Radio “Your Radio is Their Stage” artist residency. The radio series will be broadcast on Sunday (February 6) and explore the theory, symbolism, and cultural context behind traditional Islamic art.
“I think there’s a growing interest, but also a lack of basic contextual literacy and understanding in how to view contemporary traditional art,” says Turnham. “Peterborough is becoming more diverse in our demographics. I think it’s good to gain some literacy in other artistic traditions and other ways of thinking about the world, especially now that there is a lot more interest in things like mandalas and yoga and meditation.”
“For these traditional aspects that we’re bringing into contemporary life, it’s important to have a framework for engaging with them that is respectful and genuine and culturally appropriate,” she adds.
During her artistic residency with Trent Radio, Gillian Turnham is producing a six-episode radio series exploring traditional Islamic art and why it is experiencing a contemporary revival. The series features conversations with guest artists Adam Williamson, Ameet Hindocha, Eman Hijazi, Paul Barchilon, and Samira Mian. (Photo: Michael Morritt)
Before exploring Islamic traditions, much of Turnham’s artistic grounding looked to European and Western traditions. Since practising traditional Islamic art, she’s noticed that many people have a growing interest in the form and patterns, but lack understanding of its framework.
For instance, Turnham says traditional art is treated differently in the West because of differences in ideology about progress and time.
“We think about traditional arts as existing in museums, or being something that we need to preserve, rather than being something alive and meaningful in a contemporary sense,” she explains.
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For Turnham, when the opportunity came to transfer her artistic practice into audio with her “Your Radio is Their Stage” artist residency at Trent Radio, that meant sharing the cultural traditions and contexts from which her work derives meaning. Through the residency, Turnham has received mentorship, equipment, training, and support to develop the radio series.
“It’s a relatively standard talk radio format, in which I bring on a number of guests to the show and we discuss various topics within Islamic art rooted very much in the experience of contemporary artists working in the field today,” Turnham says. “We also explain some of the history and give the background context for people who might not have encountered this before.”
The topics to be covered within the series, which is called ‘Beauty, Goodness, Truth’, include:
What is Islamic art and why is it experiencing a revival today?
What is the role of digital technology in Islamic art today?
How are unity and diversity expressed within the tradition?
Are figurative images banned in Islamic art?
What have been the roles of guilds in the past, and could they be revived today?
How does the way we conceptualize and teach number/geometry today differ from the past?
This work by artist Gillian Turnham shows the underlying geometric structure of the Islamic art tradition. (Photo: Michael Morritt)
Turnham put a lot of thought into the structure and formulation of the series. Six one-hour episodes is not a lot of time, considering Turnham’s nine years of research on the topic.
“There was a lot of formulation in terms of all the information that I wanted to get across and how I could structure that,” Turnham says. “They’re not scripted — they’re all spontaneous conversations.”
The series features conversations with Adam Williamson, Ameet Hindocha, Eman Hijazi, Paul Barchilon, and Samira Mian, many of whom live in different countries. Figuring out how to get a high-quality audio recording of Zoom conversations with people from around the world was an added challenge for Turnham’s project, although she prevailed.
“I have been finding it a little more intuitive than I thought that I would,” Turnham says. “I’ve had great support from Trent Radio and from Laurel Pollock on that regard as well.”
A completed work in the Islamic tradition by artist Gillian Turnham. (Photo: Michael Morritt)
Turnham has created show notes for listeners of the series, which will be available on her website at www.gillianturnham.com. For each episode, listeners will find visuals and further readings on the topics discussed.
While this is her first time learning audio as a medium, it is not the first time Turnham has shifted her artistic practice to a new medium. Originally a fine-metal sculptural artist, she expanded her artistic practice to work with wood and stone as well as hand-pierced metal, creating miniature sculptural works that explored elements of structure and traditional patterns.
She then became interested in tessellation — covering a surface with geometric shapes with no gaps or overlaps — and, in 2014, began focusing on the complex geometric patterns of the Islamic tradition. Turnham recently spent three years in southern Spain, where she immersed herself in the study of the Islamic geometric tradition. There, she created hand-sewn tapestries and original drawings and designed a series of mechanical clocks that incorporate traditional Islamic geometric patterns with other tessellating forms.
Artist Gillian Turnham recently spent three years in southern Spain, where she immersed herself in the study of the Islamic geometric tradition. (Photo: Michael Morritt)
Since the pandemic, her artistic expression of the Islamic tradition has been primarily through painting.
“With the pandemic and all of the lockdowns, I only had access to my domestic space,” Turnham explains. “Painting made a lot more sense within those confines, and it was something that I hadn’t been particularly gripped by before. By that point, my work was already very firmly rooted in Islamic geometry, and having the opportunity to explore that in painting was different from any previous experience.”
With its underlying mathematical framework, the geometry of Islamic art is based on simple forms that are combined, duplicated, and interlaced. The resulting intricate, symmetrical patterns represent unity and order while giving the artist an exceptional degree of flexibility and freedom of expression — an important balance according to Turnham.
“If you create a way of existing in the world that is connected to balance, it retains value without being in a constant process of change,” she says. “Change is inevitable. We don’t have to fight for that. But fighting for the connection — that essential harmonic resonance — has value now more than ever.”
A work by artist Gillian Turnham. The geometry of Islamic art is based on simple forms that are combined, duplicated, and interlaced. The resulting intricate, symmetrical patterns represent unity and order while giving the artist an exceptional degree of flexibility and freedom of expression. (Photo: Michael Morritt)
To learn more about Turnham’s traditional methods and designs, visit her website at www.gillianturnham.com. You can also follow her on Instagram @gillianturnham.
Turnham’s radio series is set to broadcast from 6 to 7:30 p.m on Sunday, February 6th on Trent Radio at 92.7 CFFF FM in Peterborough, 287 on Cogeco Cable, and online at www.trentradio.ca.
Trent Radio’s “Your Radio Is Their Stage” artist residency project runs until March 2022, with Turnham’s residency concluding on February 6.
Textile artist Melanie McCall was the first to complete her residency on October 17, followed by Jose Miguel Hernandez on November 14 and JoEllen Brydon on December 12. Gillian Turnham’s February 6 residency will be followed by John Marris (community arts). Poet Justin Million’s residency, originally scheduled from December 5 to January 9, is being rescheduled.
The reimagined work of all participating artists will also be broadcast in April 2022.
“Your Radio Is Their Stage” is made possible by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the only organization mandated to support campus and community radio stations in Canada financially.
This story was created in partnership with Trent Radio, a producer-oriented broadcast facility that started as a Trent University student club in 1968. Sponsored and designed by students from Trent University, Trent Radio incorporated as a registered charity in 1978. Trent Radio currently holds a Community Broadcast License, and is a resource that is shared with the Nogojiwanong-Peterborough community.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
