Tammie Dupuis
Tribe: Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation
Based In: Bremerton, WA
Email: tammie.dupuis@arts.cornish.edu
Social Media: @tammiedupuis
Website: dupuiscreative.com
About the Art
Stories have always been an important part of my life; stories from my childhood continue to resonate with me even now. Unpacking the narratives of my own childhood is a complex activity; I was told stories from my father's Native American heritage as well as the common fairy tales from my mother's European heritage. These both influence my work in sometimes intersecting and sometimes conflicting ways which are reflected in the ambiguity of my subject matter.
The main narratives that are present in my work are concerned with the mother-child bond, movement between spaces, transition and transformation, ambiguity, and identity. Universal themes that cross cultures and contain archetypal imagery. My aim, in using archetypes, is to create narratives that are rooted in the space between, that embrace ambiguity, and celebrate it. My practice is primarily concerned with oil painting. I made the decision to appropriate this art form in order to use it, as a recognizable 'language', to tell stories that have otherwise been historically and modernly ignored in this media. I want to make work that explores the no man's land that exists between the real and unreal, the secular and the spiritual, and the hypothetical area which exists beyond what has been and extends to what might be.
About the Art
Born and raised in Northwestern Montana, Tammie grew up on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Her father was an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and her mother was of Western European descent. It was through these two cultural traditions that she was introduced to narrative as a means of making sense of the world. Using this lens, her work in painting and sculpture investigates transformation, transition, identity, relationships, and ambiguity. Tammie holds a Bachelors of Science in Anthropology/Archaeology from Montana State University, Bozeman. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts with a focus in Painting and Sculpture, and has attended Gage Academy of Art; both in Seattle. She is a recipient of the NW Watercolor Foundation Gold Grant Scholarship, the Jon & Mary Shirley Foundation Endowed Scholarship, and the Stephen Hannock Endowed Art Scholarship. She and her art practice are currently situated in Bremerton, WA.
