like the sky before a tornado - strange, silent, foretelling, 2022
Wool, silk, linen, pigment, dye
72 x 48 inches
thinking about Simone Weil, 2022
Silk, dye, pigment, thread
72 x 48 inches
an unclear relationship between matter and the invisible, 2022
Wool, silk, linen, pigment, dye
72 x 48 inches
the delicate touch of Helena's foot reaching out to the window's edge, 2022
Wool, silk, linen, pigment, dye
72 x 48 inches
Hyacinth, 2021
Wool, silk, pigment
20 x 16 inches
Arrangement 6, 2019
Wool, linen, pigment
32 x 25 inches
Milestone, 2019.
Wool, linen, pigment, quartz.
Arrangement 4, 2019
Wool, linen, pigment
32 x 25 inches.
Arrangement 5, 2019
Wool, linen, pigment
32 x 25 inches
Separated Column (After Noguchi), 2019
Wool, linen, pigment, quartz
Blue/Grey 1, 2017
Wool, silk, dye
12 x 10 inches
Like water I have no skin (2), 2017
Wool, silk, dye
12 x 10 inches
Lucretius, 2019
Wool, linen, pigment
32 x 24 inches
Dove Descending, 2019
Wool, linen, pigment
32 x 24 inches
Martha Tuttle (b. 1989, New Mexico) earned her MFA in Painting from The Yale School of Art in 2015 and her BA at Bard College. Recent solo exhibitions include An ear, a hand, a mouth, an offering, an angel (2022) at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, Wild irises grow in the mountains (2021) at Tilton Gallery in New York; Ma/Ma (2021) at Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin; Moonrays (2021) ay Koki Arts Gallery in Tokyo; Outlooks: Martha Tuttle (2020) at the Storm King Center in New Windsor; Constellations I drew in Nevada (2020) at Luce Gallery in Turin; Bacchante by the Sea (2019) at Geukens & DeVil in Antwerp.
Natural materials of wool, silk, and dye are worked by hand, each resulting piece having undergone an immaterial transfer of energy through Tuttle’s physical and meditative touch. The artist’s relationship to materiality is often revealed by the inclusion of small crystals, both actual and cast polished metal, and of fabricated steel weights. These elements add another layer of visual incident and mark-making, that furthers a dialogue of possibility and substance, light and weight. Overall, the unification of immaterial energy with material form results in constructed canvases and loosely hanging paintings that vibrate with a felt, unseen force.
Residencies include the Montello Foundation Residency, Montello, NV; the Rauschenberg Foundation Residency, Captiva, FL; the DNA Residency, Provincetown, MA; the Sondre Green Farm Residency, Noresund, Norway; the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; the UCross Foundation, Clearmont, WY; and A-Z West, Joshua Tree, CA.
Tuttle’s work is in the collection of The University of San Diego, San Diego, CA and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
New Mexico-born multi-media artist Martha Tuttle presents her show “Geologies,” on display through July 10 at Guesthouse JH.
I am still processing Martha Tuttle’s exhibition at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, “An ear, a hand, a mouth, an offering, an angel.” Revisiting the images in my phone’s camera roll, I zoom in on a patch of tufted hand-spun wool or the taught seam where it connects with a swath of painted silk, creating a crisp silhouette of the aluminum stretcher bar just behind. I smile at a photo of an adult and child crouching low to examine the titular installation which consists of small natural(ish) objects—quartz, stones cast into steel, a nut casing—arranged lovingly, meticulously in the gallery corner. (What makes one material more “natural” than another? Tuttle might ask).
Conversation between Marina Adams and Martha Tuttle, published in the print issue of BOMB Magazine, Winter 2022.
Recently, I had the pleasure of working with my friend Kyle Simon, who has started Farrington Press outside of Joshua Tree, California. The press is off-grid, meaning it functions on solar power, and the water and materials Kyle brings in strapped to his pickup truck.
Martha Tuttle’s paintings can be defined by belonging, in that they are seriously invested in a material process that takes the craft of the medium as part of its subject. The spinning, weaving, and dyeing necessary to structure these objects forms their image, so the compositions are fixed inside the substrate, rather than constituting separate layers.
Beautiful review of Martha Tuttle's new installation: a stone that thinks of Enceladus, at Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley.
"Ms. Tuttle has gathered boulders from Storm King’s property, most of them about knee-height, and placed them around the clearing with a contrapuntal casualness; resting on each boulder are delicate sculptures of rocks, crafted in the artist’s studio from milky glass or solid marble, and arranged with the same tossed-off elegance as the boulders themselves. These humble cairns conjoin “real” and “artificial” stones, not to mention the lichens growing on the boulders’ surfaces and the grass beneath your feet into a poem of vibrant matter."
Brian T. Leahy from Artforum delves into the philosophical underpinnings of Martha Tuttle's recent show Dance of Atoms at Rhona Hoffman Gallery.
Review of The Dance of Atoms at Rhona Hoffman Gallery.
An interview with Martha Tuttle in her Brooklyn studio.
Review of I long and seek after at Tilton Gallery.
Review of Martha Tuttle and Henry Chapman at Rhona Hoffman Gallery.
Review of Martha Tuttle at Tilton Gallery.
