Chaos of Memory
“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.” – Walter Benjamin “Unpacking My Library”
Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s essay, my site specific installation entitled Chaos Of Memory is composed of historical ephemera, found and altered objects that speaks to the human story of love, loss, longing and a desire for order in a disorderly universe.
Chaos of Memory, 2026
Mixed media assemblage and collage.
11′ x 32″
Specially conceived for the Brand Library and Art Center, the exhibition engages directly with the library as both a repository of knowledge and a living civic space…
Central to the exhibition “Artifacts From an Unborn Empire” is an expansive approach to materiality. Industrial materials such as brick, clay, glass, and metal appear alongside books, journals, documents, photographs, letters, mementos, and other forms of everyday ephemera. Through processes of collecting, archiving, assembling, and transforming, the artists reveal how material culture functions as both evidence and intervention, displaying lived experiences while generating new narratives.
Left: Murry Turetzky Room 10 Desk 18, 2026
Mixed media on leather vintage book cover.
16″ x 16″ x 2″
Right: Grandfather, 2026
Mixed media on vintage victorian album sleeve.
16″ x 16″ x 2″
Materia Medica: A Cabinet of Cures
Material Medica: A Cabinet of Cures, mixed media in a vintage wooden printers drawer, and A Field Kit for Divination and The Traveling Cure are bespoke pieces for Diverted Destruction 19 which which examines materials, once connected to care, pain, survival, and bodily repair that are reimagined as works of art.
Both of my pieces, Material Medica: A Cabinet of Cures and A Field Kit for Divination and The Traveling Cure speak to our fear of getting sick and our desire to know the future. The meaning of my work comes from the materials i use- all of it found, borrowed, altered and gifted to me. These materials – no matter how mundane – speak volumes of our collective desires, fears, dreams and the weight of history.
Detail: Material Medica: A Cabinet of Cures, 2026
Detail: A Field Kit for Divination and The Traveling Cure, 2026
Detail: A Field Kit for Divination and The Traveling Cure, 2026
A Moveable Feast
A Moveable Feast, 2025
Installation/Assemblage
This installation is composed of multiple 2D and 3D pieces including the following: Two mixed media works in vintage frames each 21″ x 14″. Two vintage pastel portraits in bubble glass frames circa 1789. Large gold framed mixed media piece 50″ x 40″. Three vintage luggage pieces in descending size with bronze baby shoes, vintage autograph note circa 1880s, and bakelite comb. Two wood panel pieces with assorted vintage materials such as: 19th century iron, rosary and rusted mailbox flap from 1897.
8′ x 8′ x 5′ approx.
The Secret Life of Shards
2023 – 2026, 108″ x 120″, ink dyed paper, silver leaf, vintage photographs, jewelry, feathers, staples, dyed cardboard, diamond dust, pins, tea bags. (Size Variable)
Details: The Secret Life of Shards
“Nancy Kay Turner’s use of unusual – yet often mundane – materials belies the fact that her works are encompassingly evocative, enchanting the viewer with their complexity and poetry. Using materials as prosaic as ordinary wax paper and crumpled journal pages, antique wooden shoe forms and vintage photographs, feathers, and pins and a dusting of silver leaf or curve of gold she creates startlingly immersive, riveting work such as ‘The Secret Life of Shards.'” – Genie Davis, Diversions LA
