MAZIE TURNER
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1954-2014
MUCH-REVERED artist, inspirational art teacher and beloved mum Mazie Turner recently lost her battle with brain cancer. She was 59.
Turner's paintings and photographs appear in collections at the Art Gallery of NSW, National Art Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia and ArtBank Private Collections.
She was born in Sydney in 1954 to Jim and Zug. The family lived on a large property at Cardiff for the duration of her childhood.
Turner became interested in the fine arts at a young age.
In 1976, she began a bachelor of arts, majoring in printmaking and photography at the South Australian School of Art.
In 1978, when Turner was in the third year of her degree, she met fellow artist and love of her life, Richard Tipping.
"With her cropped orange hair and daring sense of fashion, her electric smile, with a silver Olympus OM1 camera slung from her shoulder, her lolloping giant black Afghan hound Heime, and her sporty green Mini Moke . . . my life changed in that moment," he said.
Tipping and Turner moved to Wangi Wangi, where they raised three children - Kai, Jasper and Grace.
"They have become the most important creations either of us ever made," Tipping said.
Turner completed her master of arts with honours at the University of Western Sydney in 1994.
In 1999, she attended the Charlie Shead Studio School where she focused on traditional oil painting techniques.
She met fellow artist Celia Gullett at the Charlie Shead Studio School and the two became close friends.
"She wasn't afraid of being different in her approach to her work," Gullett said.
"She was very spiritual and very interested in colour."
Turner's lucid, ethereal style of painting was consistent with her deep interest for the smooth, rhythmic nature of hatha yoga.
Turner worked as a yoga teacher from 1996 to 2003 after gaining her teaching diploma from the British School of Yoga.
"She managed to combine her interest in art with her yoga; we did speak about the process of painting being not unlike a form of meditation at times," Gullet said.
But Gullett said Turner's deepest passion was reserved for her children.
"Mazie's children are a testament to her motherhood, all very talented in different ways, very happy, successful individuals and all wonderful free spirits, just like Mazie was," Gullett said.
In 2008, Turner completed a PhD in fine art at the University of Newcastle, entitled Unforseen Colours: Colour Material in Painting and The Sensory Effect of Colour.
She also lectured in fine art at the University in Newcastle, and taught drawing and painting at Hunter TAFE's Newcastle Art School.
Gillean Shaw, curator of the gallery at the university, said Turner was "an incredible supporter of our students, our emerging artists coming through into the art community".
"She had a really keen intellect and eye for the aesthetic, and she was a mate. A really good mate," Ms Shaw said.
"She was just one of those people who really left her mark with whoever she met. I think she was one of the most intelligent women I've ever known."
Tipping remembers Turner as a vibrant redhead with a deeply passionate persona to match.
"She felt the world strongly and held it close, she was political with purpose and bite; she wanted a better life for others and took injustice to heart," he said.
At the time of her death, Tipping and Turner were collaborating on a book detailing her many influential artworks. Tipping hopes to complete the work with the help of their children, to be released later in the year.
