Justin Tuttle

Justin Tuttle
Portland, Oregon, USA

STATEMENT

My practice begins with the necessity of catharsis. I do not have preconceived notions of what the collage piece should be beforehand. The process of discovery is intentional as an artistic method and cathartic process for me. My collection of work typically touches on topics of mental stability, discovering selfhood, political injustices, and rootedness within geographic regions, attempting to bridge concepts of self within a sociological context. I believe my collages are surrealist in nature, blending “common” seen imagery with an abstraction of an idea. In some cases, the piece requires large amounts of interpretation from the viewer, with the intention of “meaning” being created through the viewer’s own perspective. This
participatory act steers away from interpreting art as “wrong or right”, but rather as they internalize it, hopefully bolstering their connection to selfhood by discovering a “meaning” for themselves.

BIO

I grew up in a rural farming county in Northern California, where I studied psychology and neuroscience. Being raised by a single father within a banal cultural setting and having a largely broken family, left me with a void of discovering who I was. Thinking that psychology and neuroscience would be able to answer this question for me, I soon discovered that I understood “what”, “how”, “and where”, identity is, however, what I was really searching for was the “why” within myself. I do not have preconceived notions of what the collage piece should be, but the collection of work typically touches on topics of mental stability, discovering selfhood, political injustices, and rootedness within geographic regions. Many of these themes are rooted in my study of people and myself. I finished my Masters in Architecture, investigating the convergence between homelessness and mental illness. After receiving the 2021 first-place thesis prize for my work, my passion for creating collages became a part of my identity, continually helping me answer the question “why”. After graduation I was able to have a many solo and group exhibits throughout Portland, Oregon. I have been invited to multiple gallery exhibitions throughout Oregon and Washington, and serve as a guest critic for the Department of Architecture. In 2021, I helped establish non-profit status and volunteer as a graphic designer for Playground Gallery which is a pop-up art gallery for emerging artists. I was fortunate enough to be published in Polemical Magazine issue 17 of “home”, and make the cover of Riot and Roux magazine “Land”. Recently, I have been invited for commissioned work, adding pieces to a group calendar and selling at street market events with members of the Pacific Northwest Collage Collective.

ARTIST CONTACT

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tuttle.design

IMAGES