Jessica Silverman announces the representation of Oakland-based artist Rupy C. Tut. Tut’s artistic practice expands, innovates, and reframes the traditions of Indian miniature painting. She mixes her own pigments and turns to hemp paper and linen to contend and make visible one’s place in the world. On September 23, the artist will be the subject of the solo exhibition Out of Place at the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Francisco. The exhibition will feature a series of large paintings, presenting elaborate figures and landscapes that explore motherhood and migration through an eco-feminist lens.
“Rupy’s paintings explore the complexities of maternal landscapes through a fine brush and a robust command of pigments that she makes herself,” said Jessica Silverman. “Her conceptual rigor combined with her fine craftsmanship are relevant to our program, and we’re thrilled that she’s joining us to advance the conversation about what it means to be human in our time.”
The selection of works on view at the ICA San Francisco will present an autobiographical character, seen in tranquil states of body and mind, immersed in nature. Searching for ancestors (2023), Tut’s first painting on linen, depicts a woman’s face emerging from the peak of a craggily mountain—the mountain’s soft and hard edges shroud her body, and she appears fossilized in space and time. A mother of three children, Tut confidently embraces the responsibility and surrender of the everyday experience. In one of the largest works on paper, Portrait of a Woman (2023), the central figure embodies fertility—her pregnant belly is cradled in her hands, and she appears floating in a mandorla motif amidst a lush forest. Imbued with meaning, the repetition of eyes on the figure’s tunic reminds us of the value of vigilance, but also the multitude of selves that we create and procreate.
ABOUT RUPY C. TUT
Rupy C. Tut (b. 1985, Chandigarh, India) received a BS from UCLA and MPH from Loma Linda University, CA. She has enjoyed solo exhibitions including Search and Rescue, Jessica Silverman, San Francisco and A Recipe for Brown Skin, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA; and A Journey Back Home, Peel Art Gallery and Museum Archives, Ontario. Tut’s work is in the permanent collection of Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; the de Young, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. She lives and works in Oakland, CA.
