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Red Oil Painting

Mill Room Gallery

As part of our commitment to supporting all varieties of art, The Mill Room functions as an art gallery. Each MainStage show features a new artist or group of artists. Work is hung through the dining room and hall. While not all pieces are for sale, any art sold benefits the Mill and supports a local artist.

Current

Artist

Emily Turner

Relentless Dreaming: A Heart In Motion

Exhibit Featuring Emily Turner

September 5th through October 27th, 2023

Artist Headshot_Emily Turner.jpg

Artist Statement

To be alive is to be in motion. The blood pumping through our veins, the tears that trace their paths down our cheeks, the breath expanding and flowing through our lungs and muscles, the laughter that creases our skin into permanent patterns of joy—these are the hallmarks of a life being lived. Nothing is ever truly still if it still lives.

I’ll never forget the surprise and delight I felt when, like living things, brush, paint, and canvas reached out and grabbed me, opening up a whole new way of experiencing the world around me and looking at my place in it.

Funnily enough, I began painting as an actor’s exercise. I had always been the physical artist in my family—dance, martial arts, singing, theatre, stage combat—and never considered myself a painter or visual creator of any stripe! Then I was cast in a show where I had to portray an artist. So, I went to Michael’s and got a $5 kit of paints to play around with, just to get a feel for it.

The moment I touched brush to page I was hooked. With music blasting on my headphones and a sway in my step, new parts of me came roaring to life.

This is the dynamic I seek to capture in my work. By exploring the play between the physical motion and the internal emotion of living life in a chaotic universe, I hope to find pieces of something bigger than the world inside my own head. A bit of joy, a touch of sorrow, maybe even a splash of truth—I’m on a journey to uncover the fragments that connect us.

I invite you to come along with me.

Previous Artists

2022-2023 Season

Chester Artists Association

Muzi Branch

Katherine Thompson

Art for the Journey

Abraham Sprinkle

2021-2022 Season

Baxter Perkinson

Jane Zander

Swimming In Paint

BAAAR

James River Art League

2018-2019 Season

Deanna Williford

Thomas Bradshaw

Three Friends

All Star Show

Paul Penrod

2016-2017 Season

Ed Hatch

Henry Kidd

Eleanor Cox

Paul Penrod

Donald Hardy

Sharon Denmark

2019-2020 Season

Central Virginia Art League

Henry Kidd

David Hoque & Ally Hill

2017-2018 Season

Mike Haubenstock

Kathy Rivera

Virginia Hickey

Jane Zander

Craig Martin

2015-2016 Season

Ivan and Baxter Perkinson

Ivan and Baxter Perkinson

Holly Markoff

Brenda Duckwall

Terry Lacy

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