CHARLES TURNELL

Prairie & Sky

January 16 - February 21, 2026 | OPENING: Friday, January 16, 2026 | 6-8 pm

Bruno David is pleased to present Prairie & Sky, an exhibition by Belizean-born Saint Louis-based artist Charles Turnell. This is Turnell’s second exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work featuring an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography.

This exhibition unites two interrelated series, Grass and Feathers, through which Turnell explores the quiet dialogue between land and sky, grounding and uplift. Through his mosaic process, he transforms everyday natural forms into luminous compositions that evoke optimism, rootedness, and renewal in a time when culture often feels fragmented and detached.

The Grass Series emerged from a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Oak Park, Chicago. Learning about Wright’s lifelong pursuit of an American design language shaped by the prairie resonated deeply with Charles. Wright’s sensitivity to the horizontal rhythms of prairie grass inspired a new way of seeing, each blade not simply as scenery but as a symbol of resilience, continuity, and belonging. In his work, these forms are abstracted, repeated, and woven into fields of pattern and color, echoing the layered structure of the prairie and suggesting that identity, like the land itself, is evolving and grounded in place.

The Feathers Series grew from daily walks near Turnell’s home in the St. Louis area, where he often found feathers along the paths. Friends, family, and neighbors began contributing their own finds, turning the process into a quiet act of communal creation. During this period, he was also photographing local birds and imagining a future Spirit Series. These small, discarded fragments became catalysts for works inspired by Native American traditions that view birds and feathers as messengers, symbols of freedom, connection, and the sacred within the everyday. Rendered as digital mosaics, the feathers embody a balance between lightness and strength, ceremony and stillness.

Together, Grass and Feathers form a dialogue between prairie and sky, between what grounds us and what elevates us. Prairie & Sky invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and rediscover the subtle but powerful elements of the natural world. This exhibition reflects a renewed romanticism rooted not in escape but in presence, a reawakening of our relationship to landscape, spirit, and the quiet beauty that endures around us.