{"id":397241,"date":"2026-09-11T20:54:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397241\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T20:54:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:54:25","slug":"jimmy-turrell-brings-the-art-of-the-unexpected-to-usf-st-petersburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397241\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Turrell brings the art of the unexpected to USF St. Petersburg."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Arielle Stevenson<\/a>, University Communications and Marketing<\/p>\n

In a creative world increasingly mediated by the digital, Jimmy Turrell still believes
\n in cutting things up. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Newcastle-born artist and designer<\/a> has built a career out of collage, screen printing, photocopying and working in the
\n tactile. In doing so, he\u2019s created work for musicians like Beck, the Rolling Stones
\n and AC\/DC, and brands like Adidas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as the technological possibilities of image-making become endless, Turrell\u2019s process
\n remains seated firmly in physical work and its distinct imperfections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m interested in the mistakes, the textures, the happy accidents in a way, and things
\n that have actually been touched and made by humanity,\u201d Turrell said.<\/p>\n

Turrell is bringing that approach to USF St. Petersburg for a two-day residency with
\n students in the Graphic Arts program<\/a>. He\u2019ll give a free public lecture <\/a>on September 16 at 6 p.m. in Harbor Hall, followed by a reception. A selection of
\n his work will also be displayed on campus.<\/p>\n

He’ll lead senior students through a workshop using collage, chance and sketchbook-making
\n to explore visual storytelling. Advanced print students will also work with him on
\n a piece combining cyanotype and screen-printing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erika Greenberg-Schneider, associate professor of Graphic Design<\/a>, established the visiting designer and artist program in 2015 with designer Paula Scher<\/a>. The program places students in direct contact with established creatives and their
\n working processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very important step in developing the culture for our program to have successful
\n artists and designers work with our students,\u201d Greenberg-Schneider said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Turrell\u2019s analogue practice developed partly by circumstance. He studied graphic design
\n but disliked working on computers early in his career, pushing him toward illustration,
\n collage, screen-printing, faxing, photocopying, and working with ephemeral and archival
\n materials.<\/p>\n

Greenberg-Schneider sees those physical processes as foundational for working artists
\n and students alike, even as creative tools continue to evolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe digital is only as good as the analogue that feeds it,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Turrell also traces his visual language and work ethic to his working-class upbringing
\n in Newcastle. His father was a firefighter and his mother a cleaner, and he grew up
\n around the Byker Wall housing development, where geometric forms and primary colors
\n stood against the surrounding Brutalist architecture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been in my membrane since I was a kid,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think if you look at
\n my work now, it\u2019s still there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I like to clash disparate worlds together and create this kind of third thing that
\n has never existed before.\u201d \u2014 Jimmy Turrell<\/p>\n

Today, that influence emerges in the way Turrell\u2019s work brings seemingly unrelated
\n materials together. He takes bits of old publications, magazines, found imagery and
\n other source materials and collides them on the page until the combination suggests
\n its own direction. He plans on imposing restrictions on the materials students use
\n for their workshop, giving them a container to experiment within.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, it really is just sitting there with a magazine, cutting some stuff up,
\n and seeing what you can create and then something\u2019s born out of that,\u201d he said. \u201cI
\n like to clash disparate worlds together and create this kind of third thing that has
\n never existed before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His lecture will expose another part of the creative process that students do not
\n always see: failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Turrell recalled attending talks by prominent designers that focused almost exclusively
\n on their biggest successes. From the perspective of a student in a classroom, he said,
\n that kind of career retrospective can obscure the path between starting out and professional
\n success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"JimmyBartle Bogle Hegarty Exhibition of Turrell’s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always make sure if I\u2019m giving talks that I show the mistakes made as well as the
\n successes,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His own career has included lessons learned through difficult projects, navigating
\n clients and learning the business side of creative work. Underneath it all is an ethic
\n he learned growing up in Newcastle, what he calls \u201cgraft.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to keep making things, you have to have graft, you have to make it work,\u201d
\n Turrell said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Greenberg-Schneider said that persistence is a central reason she wanted students
\n to work alongside him, describing Turrell as someone who is \u201calways studying, proposing,
\n thinking.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For emerging artists, the result is a chance to encounter part of the creative practice
\n that rarely appears before the finished product: the cutting, experimenting and mistakes
\n that give something its meaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Arielle Stevenson, University Communications and Marketing In a creative world increasingly mediated by the digital, Jimmy Turrell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-397241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}