Exhibition: New Work by YCAL Fellow Martha Tuttle

February 3, 2015

By Nancy Kuhl

New work by recent graduate student fellow Martha Tuttle is currently on view in the 2015 Yale MFA Painting/Printmaking Thesis Exhibition.

Regarding her fellowship research and its relationship to her work, Tuttle writes:

“During my fellowship at the Beinecke, I did comparative research using the archives of Rachel Carson, Terry Tempest Williams and Leslie Marmon Silko. Considering the three writers within an expanded American landscape tradition, I looked for concepts of ecology that diminish distinction between our bodies and the environments we inhabit.

This research was extremely influential to the processes I developed for the paintings included in my thesis. Through fore-fronting erosion and rupture of surface, I explore permeable states of matters, principles of exposure, and flexible body boundaries.

In the archives of Carson, Williams, and Silko, I searched specifically for moments in which physical engagement (such as walking) in and with landscape informs an understanding of place. My process allows my body to get very involved in the making-I often end up inside the plastic beds, on top of the soaking supports. The struggle to repair, hang, work, and manage a support larger than myself adds a dimension to the ruptures, erosion, and surface interventions.  In the topographical formation of the surfaces of my work there is a resonance of a physical entanglement.”

Tuttle’s work will be on view through February 8th.

Exhibition Details:

2,015 But Who’s Counting:
2015 Yale MFA Painting/Printmaking Thesis Exhibition

Yale University School of Art
1156 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT 06511

Information: (203) 432-2605 
Gallery Hours: 10 am- 6 pm Monday through Sunday

On view: January 31st - February 8th
Opening Reception: February 7th 6-9 PM

Featured Artists: Henry Chapman, Maria de Los Angeles Cornejo, Katherine Davis, Patrick Groth, Marisa Manso, Johanna Povirk-Znoy, Luke Rogers, Tschabalala Self, Martha Tuttle, David Walsh, Kyle Williams
 

Image: Detail from ‘Radical and Retrograde’ by Martha Tuttle