This month we are showcasing the work of Mark Turner. Mark will join us for a special reception during this month’s First Friday Art Walk on March 6th and his work will be displayed at the BQC Center through the end of the month.
Mark Turner has had a camera in his hands for over 60 years and has earned his living making images, mostly of plants, for over 30 years. He’s the primary photographer of three plant field guides, with two more coming out in May, 2026 (all from Timber Press) and the now out of print Bellingham Impressions. Collectively, over 90,000 people have his books and they’ve received several awards.
A little over 10 years ago, Mark began photographing the male nude. He was struggling internally with the idea that he might be gay after nearly 35 years in a happy heterosexual marriage. Working with male models and with himself in front of the camera, he began to be more comfortable both with his body and with being gay. He learned about the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, entered his work, and the jurors accepted some of it for display. The pieces in this exhibit at the Bellingham Queer Collective have either been shown at SEAF or submitted to the jury but not selected.
In 2019 Mark began a series of nude portraits of gay men in the radical faerie community that he calls the Naked Faerie Portrait Studio. Working at the winter and summer faerie gatherings at Oregon’s Breitenbush Hot Springs, he’s now photographed over 100 men, almost all of them nude. Most had never stripped down for the camera and many have commented on how powerful, in a positive way, it’s been for them to be vulnerable in this way. He plans to collect many of these portraits in a book that celebrates the diversity of the faerie community.
Mark met Brian, the man who is now his husband, in April 2017. They decided they were boyfriends while camping over Memorial Day weekend that year and pulled off a July 2020 wedding in the middle of the covid pandemic. They enjoy gardening, building things from wood, and spending quiet time hiking and backpacking.