Opening September 3, Gerry Tuten’s paintings are deep encounters with the natural world.
She paints woods, water, and sky with a physical vigor that reflects her spirited engagement with the environment and her urgent pursuit of personal expression.
This body of work was made over the past ten years and includes paintings that reflect both the natural world and the artist’s inner life. They exist in a zone where abstraction and representation shade off into each other, through the use of bold colors, earthy textures, and gestural brush strokes.
Intensely curious, the artist explores the micro and macro levels of the natural ecology. In creating a painting, once a visual structure for the image is established, it begins to fragment, with the artist transferring her joy, excitement, and freedom directly to the canvas.
Through close observation, this work is immersed in the natural world in myriad ways, through trees, flowers, insects, and birds. With spontaneous and direct mark-making, the artist’s actions stay ahead of her conscious mind. Her physical engagement with organic forms and the visceral qualities of paint expresses the abundance and beauty of nature, and the delight that she takes in it.
At this point in a painting, the artist allows herself to break all the rules, and surrender to the process. Trusting her intuition, she is able to let go of any expectations of what a work of art should look like, and allow the medium of paint to speak. Distilled out of movement and change, the painting emerges as a gift. These paintings are the record the artist leaves behind of her journey into spirit, and in gratitude for life.
A Closer Look
The artist has painted the natural world over the past two decades, focusing on water reflecting the sky and trees, dense forests, seascapes, and flowers. Often a work done on site can serve as the basis for a series produced in the studio. A series of paintings begun in 2009 introduced a more abstract approach, combining a sense of open space, with moving color, symbolic images, and words. These paintings reflect Tuten’s statement: “My intention for the work is that it connect with others at the deepest level of feeling, to bring awareness and consciousness to beings and in this process, to bring healing, love and light.”
Explore more of Gerry Tuten’s work below. Hover over the image to magnify and examine the finer details.
