Print Details
Regular Edition
25 x 13 Inches
Fine-art Giclée print on Bright White Optica One smooth fine art paper
Half-inch border
Limited Edition of 50
Signed + Numbered
Printed with ♥ by Spirit Printing Services
Variant Edition
25 x 13 inches
Fine-art Giclée print on Brilliance Holographic film
Half-inch border
Limited Edition of 25
Signed + Numbered
Printed with ♥ by Spirit Printing Services
Artist Statement
This print is based on the design for my Sea Walls Boston 2021 mural with the same name. It came about through conversations with shark researchers at the New England Aquarium and my own desire to confront my fear of these awesome creatures.
Growing up in Massachusetts, I was taught that as apex predators, these sharks are dangerous man-eaters that need to be controlled. Through my research for this project, I learned that just the opposite is true - sharks of all kinds should be very afraid of humans, not the other way around.
The numbers in the design indicate the statistics. While about seven people on average worldwide die from shark interactions in a given year, we manage to kill up to 100,000,000 sharks in the same amount of time.
Our desperation for control over oceans, markets, medicines, the food chain, the past, the future, and everything in between, means we strive to dominate all other species on Earth, most often through violence justified with terms such as ‘the economy’ or ‘progress.’ But the violence we visit on other species is only a temporary form of control. As we continue to slaughter our fellow creatures with abandon, our ability to control the future slips through our fingers in a directly-correlating negative feedback loop.
- Sophy Tuttle
Artist Bio
Sophy Tuttle's work transforms sterile scientific facts into a rich visual landscape that can be easily accessed intellectually and emotionally by a wide range of people. In particular, she is 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.
Her work is focused on the natural world, our place in it, and the conflicts and collaborations we find ourselves in every day with nature. Sophy's bright, carefully researched murals often aim to disrupt deeply embedded beliefs about Aristotle’s hierarchy of nature. She renders 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, she hopes that her paintings call attention to the magnificent beauty that still exists in nature today.
The Story behind FEAR
Sophy Tuttle
About the Artist
Sophy Tuttle
