Born in New York, 43 years ago, my two earliest memories are - first at 2 yrs. of age; I would pull all the detergents out from under the kitchen sink and make sculptured pies on the living room floor -the second is of a 4 yr. old boy standing alone in a long empty driveway, watching cats walk in and out of the backyard; the colors were: green - gray, warm black and a very intense Dutch yellow light.

We whisk through many crushes in our life time. I loved ‘Claude Kirchner’s Circus’, a T.V. program which I watched before bedtime at 7 years of age, ‘Merrie Melodies’, ‘Ignats’ and ‘Crazy Cat’ and the bouncing ‘Sing-Along-Ball’. All were early morning programs, crushes that denote fond and warm memories of waking up with my dad, seeing him off to work while I got to stay home, watch T.V. and dream of the things I wanted to do in that day (and then went ahead and did them). 

In 1982 I Interned with George McNeil a New York School Painter who was 80 years of age at the time and warned me of the dangers of being a painter. He said "...if there is anything else you could do to make a living go to it.. because a painter’s life is not an easy one." Almost 20 years later painting still remains my sole way to communicate those extremely personal, in-audible, subtle nuances of though and emotion that have no life for me except for on a textured, colored surface.

Through my work I am learning that the essence of anything, any action of us as a species, is to see, to experience, to learn. To make ‘Art’ real, one must learn to be in the moment of each experience, whether physical, mental, emotional or otherworldly, when the logos is brought to bare, when you are alone in the studio without having done your homework, (lived your life) your work can not have that reality, have that life. For you also realize that making art in many ways is like making your children - you have little or nothing to do with it. As Matisse said "...not he but the Postman had painted "The Pink Onions". Conception is out of our hands. But oh how glorious it is to ‘see’ your child being born, growing before your
eyes.

Sincerely with a handshake, 

                                                                                                       Ralph Turturro, June, 02, 2001