Lately, I’ve really been getting into the art world again–mostly local art, and especially mixed media art. I’m interested in people who are unwilling to pigeonhole themselves into a specific genre. To that point, a young woman has caught my eye as of late.

Dorothy Tunnell is a mixed media artist in the broadest sense. I saw her work recently at the Wardman Gallery in Whittier, California, and had a chance to speak with her as well. The exhibition had a great showing (especially for being her first solo show!), and a range of people turned out to view the gallery. Though she had one room dedicated to her (huge!) charcoal figure drawings, much of her current body of work is a reaction to her time spent living abroad in Tamil Nadu, India. And that much is clear; giant paintings of Hindu gods, mythological iconography of Indian women in sarees squaring off against an enraged swan, people, children, locales. On one pedestal, there was even a flattened, mummified lizard entombed in highly polished resin. She insisted she’d found it pre-mummified, to my relief.

While there were many ‘giant scale’ works in her gallery, she also isn’t afraid to work small, nor is she afraid to mix mediums at will. Her labeling as a mixed media artist was particularly of note concerning a few specific pieces; the aforementioned Hindu god seemed to first be sculpted with a thick layer of molding paste before applying both oil and a special acrylic mineral bronze that had oxidized. Another piece, titled “Clay Spirits,” was an iconography of ancient horses constructed with a collage of Tamil magazine print, sealed with acrylic on a coarse burlap.

A third stand-out piece Dorothy showed me–one which was not part of the showing, but was in her studio nearby–was an amazing textural work she called “Emilie and the Octopus” (presently the featured piece on her website at DorothyTunnell.com). The medium was principally charcoal, ink, and gouache, with the paper having been treated with salt on splatters of ink. The octopus  was spread ominously, it’s underside patterned with henna-like design, and the backside of it’s eight arms glowing with the vivid gouache treatment. And it seemed that the octopus had a pilot, or perhaps a dance partner; none other than the French musician Emilie Simon, noted with her tell-tale cybernetic ‘arm,’ the attachment she uses to trigger sound during her shows. She seemed to pilot the creature, holding it by the tips of two tentacles, with equal parts elegance, strength, and recklessness. For it’s textural and uncanny qualities (in the sense of Ernst Jentsch or Sigmund Freud), this was truly an incredible piece that stuck with me after I viewed it.

Dorothy tells me that most her work is now featured on her website at DorothyTunnell.com. If you are at all interested in mixed media art, definitely give her work a look!