Gerry Tuten
Covid Series 1, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
11 x 11"

Artist Statement
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.

Artist Bio

Tuten was born in 1941 in Pittsburgh. Her early interest in art lead her to study interior design at the Parsons School of Design in New York, where she received a BFA in 1964. After working in interior design, in 1968 she spent a year traveling the world,with extended stays in France and India. Tuten studied metalsmithing at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she made small sculptures using plasma arc welding. During Tuten's years at the Tyler School of Art, she created both metal and soft sculpture, receiving her MFA in 1973. She is a certified yoga teacher and lives in Villanova, PA.In the early 1990s, Tuten focused her energies on studying intuitive process painting, a practice for accessing thoughts and feelings by directly working with paint. This method of self-discovery became part of the artist's approach to depicting the natural world. Tuten has stated that in her work, "abstraction and representation flow into each other", and that rather than being a copy of nature, her "paintings reflect the joy of being in nature."In the late 90s, the artist began working on long rolls of paper, creating monumental works with bold colors, gestural paint handling, and a wide range of living forms including insects, bird, fish, and butterflies. These works were followed by two years of paintings on paper that focused on abstract shapes, organic images, and the figure. In 1990, Tuten started painting outdoors, in the landscape of Pennsylvania.

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."

Tuten has had solo shows at Atlantic Gallery, New York; GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, Reading, PA; Pagus Gallery, Norristown, PA; Waverly Heights Gallery, Gladwyne, PA; Miss Porter's School, Farmington, CT; Osterville Library, Osterville, MA; Commerce Square, Philadelphia; Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA; Rosemont College, Rosemont, PA; Carspecken Scott Gallery, Wilmington, DE; Gallery 919, Wilmington, DE and The Villanova University Art Gallery, Villanova, PA. Her group exhibitions include Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA; Cheltenham Center for the Arts, Cheltenham, PA; SOKA University, Laguna Beach, CA; and Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia.

gerrytuten.com

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