January 2 First Friday exhibition Books Bound/Unbound: Turner McGehee and Ward Schumaker

Date and Time

• Friday, Jan 2, 2026  6pm - 8pm

Location

Category

Arts

Details

January 2- February 28, 2026
January First Friday Gallery opening January 2, 2026, 6:00-8:00pm

Constellation Studios presents the painted book covers of Turner McGehee, Hastings, Nebraska, and the bound books of painted pages by Ward Schumaker, San Francisco CA.

Schumaker’s expressionistic brush work, and stenciled text creates a “disorienting….discourse” as hymns, quotes, dreamy narrations are legible than obscured with paste, pigment, and scribbled graphite onto pages. McGehee plays with adding value and reclaiming discarded/deaccessioned book covers for his stream-of-conscience painted flow of mysterious figures, stamped patterns, landscape references, and biological-like microworlds.

The artists’ common issue is to embed the book format and material references with free associations and to spark our deep reading.

Turner McGehee was born in Alabama. He has a degree in psychology from Washington and Lee University (BA, 1975) and in printmaking from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (MFA 1981). He joined the Hastings College art faculty in 1983, where he currently teaches printmaking, drawing and art history.
His work has been exhibited in shows at the Joslyn Art Museum, Sioux City Art Center (SD), Colorado College, the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, and the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL). He has exhibited solo at the Haydon Gallery (Lincoln, NE), the Museum of Nebraska Art, Louisiana State University and other college and university galleries.
He has presented lectures on the art of the ancient Maya, the relationship between jazz and visual imagery, the psychology of creativity and the evolution of Christian iconography. https://www.hastings.edu/bio/turner-mcgehee/
Ward Schumaker has been interpreting text into visual narrative for most of his working life. Though he started out in fine art over 40 years ago, he evolved into an internationally recognized illustrator for most of his career and is still heavily involved in the business. His illustrational style uses text as an integral part of the drawing to identify his clients and their products.

While in his senior year at Omaha University, a work he made won first prize in the Nebraska Governor's Art Show, but was deemed obscene by a viewer, forcing him to withdraw it under pressure. Consequently, Schumaker moved to San Francisco from Nebraska in 1966.

His exhibition record includes shows in New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, UC Berkeley, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Charleston, Miami, and Nashville. His work can be found in the Achenbach Foundation (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), The Zimmerli Art Museum (Rutgers); The Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha), and The Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA).
https://ward-schumaker.squarespace.com/

for further information contact:
karen@constellation-studios.net
402-429-8239