The West Seattle Garden Tour has announced the winner of their annual poster contest. The winning design is entitled “Wild, Wild Flowers” Cut paper, gel medium, acrylicon canvas board, by West Seattle artist Cynthia Turner. Her collage will be on display as part of the West Seattle Art Walk (June 9, Windermere), and will be available for auction on tour day. She won a $500 cash prize.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am drawn to clean, graphic images as well as modular design. I also tend to like limitations and parameters since they spark my imagination. Using my personal ethos of using mostly up-cycled and repurposed materials, as well working within the West Seattle Garden Tour’s theme of “The Art of Gardening”, I set out to make a piece that was slightly mid-century in feel, using paper that I found or already had on hand.

This piece is a departure from my usual work, which tends toward the abstract. Working in collage helps me not only work more representationally, but also work more loosely and organically than I would otherwise do. With this piece, I tried to create a feeling of a wild garden that was designed by nature and happenstance, yet is also clean and graphic. I like the tension between those ideas, which I think is inherent in the act of gardening. 

ARTIST BIO

After working in the legal field for 20 years, Cynthia Turner had an “a-ha” moment, returned to school, and earned a 4-year degree in interior design. That, in turn, helped her realize her passion for finding beauty in materials that would otherwise typically become part of the waste stream: paper, wood, scrap metal, packaging, found objects.

Cynthia lives in West Seattle with her husband and teenaged son. Her family owns a small business located near the Junction, where she also works part-time.