Judy Tuwaletstiwa

Judy Tuwaletstiwa combines paint and canvas with sand, clay, fiber and sticks--materials particular to the Black Mesa in Northern Arizona, where she lived for several years on a Hopi reservation. In Mapping Water, Tuwaletstiwa investigates the embrace of uncharted terrains. The first section begins with a definition of the word "genesis," alongside small paintings that relate (and don't relate) to various parts of the text, evoking thoughts on the "genesis" of ideas. Subsequent sections continue this exploration with content that varies from an iconic photograph from the Holocaust to a series of images of a dead crow that Tuwaletstiwa dissected and reassembled with curious results.
Tuwaletstiwa writes, "This desert landscape opens the unconscious to me. In my work, whether writing or painting, I seek a language that embodies the elusive and mysterious images that resonate from the deep strata of the unknown." In addition to Ms. Tuwaletstiwa's international reputation as a painter, she is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Literary Residency in Marfa, Texas for The Canyon Poem, a limited-edition book published in 1999.