He obtained his pilot's license at the age of 16 and later registered as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, flying Buddhist monks out of Chinese-controlled Tibet.

Turrell's academic background includes a BA degree from Pomona College in perceptual psychology and further studies in mathematics, geology, and astronomy.

He began experimenting with light projections during his time in the graduate Studio Art program at the University of California, Irvine, which laid the foundation for his later works.

Turrell's innovative use of light and space has earned him numerous accolades, including being named a MacArthur Fellow in 1984.

His works, which explore perception and the nature of light, have been exhibited in major museums and public art spaces worldwide.

The following year, Turrell enrolled in the graduate Studio Art program at the University of California, Irvine, where he began making work using light projections.

[13] That same year, he participated in the Los Angeles County Museum's Art and Technology Program, investigating perceptual phenomena with the artist Robert Irwin and psychologist Edward Wortz.

Since then he has spent decades moving tons of dirt and building tunnels and apertures to turn this crater into a massive naked-eye observatory for experiencing celestial phenomena.

[19] Although he works in the American desert, Turrell does not consider himself an earthworks artist like Robert Smithson or Michael Heizer.

[22] As a lifelong Quaker, Turrell designed the Live Oak Meeting House for the Society of Friends, with an opening or skyhole in the roof, wherein the notion of light takes on a decidedly religious connotation.

[23] In 2013, Turrell created another Quaker skyspace, Greet the Light, at the newly rebuilt Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting in Philadelphia.

"The most important thing is that inside turns into outside and the other way around, in the sense that relationships between the Irish landscape and sky changes" (James Turrell).

[29] Since 2009, Turrell's Third Breath, 2005 is part of the permanent exhibition of the Centre for International Light Art (CILA) in Unna, Germany.

From the inside of the structure, the viewer's point of view is focused upwards and inevitably lured into contemplating the sky as framed by the open roof.

This Skyspace is an open-air pavilion, with a canopy structure and aperture, lighting program, pool, and landscaping, situated in the Draper Courtyard at Pomona College.

At its opening, David Pagel of the Los Angeles Times called it "one of the best works of public art in recent memory".

[45] The change allowed for a wider range of colors compared to the original that was "shades of tinted white" at sunrise and sunset; now the lighting program is multicolored.

[45] Completed in 2008, Turrell devised an indoor pool in Connecticut for collectors Lisa and Richard Baker, which creates the sensation of swimming in a mirrored light box.

The light art pieces represent five decades of the artist's career, like a time tunnel, and are exhibited in a progression of nine rooms within a 1,700-square-metre (18,000 sq ft) space.

Three such works by Turrell (Danaë, Catso Red, and Pleiades) are permanent installations at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[48]Art critic John McDonald writes that Turrell's works are "dull to describe but magical to experience".

A new project, Aten Reign (2013),[54] recast the Guggenheim rotunda as an enormous volume filled with shifting artificial and natural light.

[55] In early 2017, his work was featured in the solo exhibition, Immersive Light, at the West Bund Long Museum Shanghai.

[72] House of Light also has a skyspace, whose view of the sunrise has been described as "the almost imperceptible change into deep blue was incredibly moving".