The ongoing battle for gender equality in the United States — and around the world — continues to be long and fraught. However, Li Turner, through her artwork, has spent decades shedding light upon the current issues that women and marginalized people face in society.

Having grown up in Maine, Turner’s upbringing among women family members has brought her much artistic inspiration over the years. After graduating from the University of Utah, she settled down in Seattle to work in social services, where she also found time to focus on her art. During her career, she has tackled many topics, including injustice and inequality, painting pieces that are now displayed in places like the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, among others. Her most recent exhibit at Gallery 110, titled “Facing Down Systemic Greed and Other Offenses,” explores themes of systemic greed through a feminist lens. In her artistic statement, Turner writes that her paintings “are often about the intersectionality of people and their frequent precarious positions.”

Greed begets greed

The exhibit starts out with an element of sweetness. Cupcakes make several playful appearances in the first set of paintings. “Counting Calories” shows a woman juggling three cupcakes, against a fuzzy abstract background and on checkered flooring. Another piece, “The Last One,” depicts a woman hiding a cupcake behind her back shamefully. Both touch on the guilt women are made to feel about not watching their weight and enjoying the food they like, which is often taken advantage of by companies selling weight loss products.

Then the exhibit’s tone shifts, delving into heavier themes of historical repression and collective organizing. “Still…Women’s Work?” highlights the ongoing plight of sweat shop workers in developing nations, who are subject to cruel and inhumane working conditions due to the greed of offshoring US industries and their consumers.

Further in, the painting “Keys to Equality” displays a woman lying on a couch reading, surrounded by a wall of books, all authored by women. In the corner, a group of women in hijabs read together, all representing the importance of and continued struggle for women’s education around the world.

Another motif in Turner’s exhibit was Barbie. One striking example, called “Barbie in the Bullring,” shows her standing at the center of an arena while men throw money, a scene meant to represent the commodification of women and their bodies. “#MeToo” showcases Barbie out on the street at night, being flashed by a man in a trench coat, with another man watching as a bystander. The intent of the piece, Turner says, is that “men need to regulate/control other men when they step over the line.”

In her final pieces, Turner stresses the importance of intersectional political struggles among women. “Masked Generations of Hate” toward the end of the exhibit shows a gender-ambiguous, interracial couple holding each other while KKK and Proud Boys members march in the background. This serves as both a warning of growing right-wing extremism as well as an example of the social progress made in the past that needs to be protected.

Find more information at https://www.gallery110.com/current-exhibitions.