Sophy Tuttle

My work is often an attempt to transform sterile scientific facts into a rich visual landscape that can be easily accessed intellectually and emotionally by a wide range of people. In particular, I am drawn to mural work because of the inherently democratic viewership. To experience a public mural, the viewer does not need money, education, status, or access to spaces of privilege such as galleries or museums. When a mural is painted in a public space, through content, form, and sheer size, it has the enormous power to transform that space into a “place.” It can provide the seed for a more active, vibrant, collaborative, and discursive arena, and even set the intention of the actions that occur in that space through its collaborative creation and subject matter.

My work is focused on the natural world, our place in it, and the conflicts and collaborations we find ourselves in everyday with nature. My bright, carefully researched murals often aim to disrupt deeply embedded beliefs about Aristotle’s hierarchy of nature. I lovingly render birds, animals, and plants to evoke a sense of awe and reverence for these beings. Although extinction and loss loom in the man-made Anthropocene era, I hope that my paintings call attention to the magnificent beauty that still exists in nature today.