Rupy C. Tut Explores Eco-Feminism, Diaspora, and Love Beyond Borders

At Jessica Silverman, “The Eighth Color” marks a resonant new chapter for Rupy C. Tut, whose intricately painted worlds bring together eco-feminism, migration, and spiritual introspection. The exhibition—her second with the gallery and first in its main space—unfolds across paintings on linen and handmade paper, each shaped by Tut’s mastery of traditional Indian painting and her commitment to storytelling that centers women, land, and collective humanity.

Born in Chandigarh and raised in the U.S. after migrating at age 12, Rupy C. Tut draws deeply from the psychology of diaspora. A polyglot and environmentalist, she approaches place as something earned and cared for, never assumed. Her lush landscapes—populated by feminine figures, arboreal ancestors, water, and mountains—suggest both refuge and reckoning, evoking idyllic harmony alongside anxieties of climate disaster and gendered constraint.

The exhibition’s title nods to poet Amrita Pritam’s notion of “the eighth color of love,” understood as a spiritual passion for human equality. For Rupy C. Tut, this idea becomes a painterly ethic. Using handmade pigments and a deliberately limited palette, she questions inherited hierarchies while preserving time-honored practices—telling stories that were long absent from the canon, and imagining new myths rooted in care, reflection, and shared responsibility.

WHITEWALL: What was the starting point for “The Eighth Color”?

RUPY C. TUT: The conceptual framework for the show begins with my core practices: self-reflection and self-awareness, in both my personal and professional spheres of existence. At the beginning and end of every day, I mentally note what I intend to do with this opportunity to be painting and to be alive each day. It is a way to explore our individual imperfections and unique qualities. Understanding my own imperfections as an individual makes me empathetic to those of others. Self-reflection is a pathway to love, for ourselves and for our communities.

“Self-reflection is a pathway to love, for ourselves and for our communities,”

Rupy C. Tut

This pathway to love, presented as an exhibition of 8 large paintings and 5 small works on paper, is the world of The Eighth Color. Due to both of these practices, the show was designed around the Self as the central character. The Eighth Color begins with the work of understanding the Self as a marker, a guide, and evidence of humanity. Each painting in the show was built around the existence of duality and at least two sides of a self-reflective moment. Sometimes the moment or painting hones in on the act of looking and turning inward and in another moment, it is about the nature of an inner conflict that keeps us awake at night. With these works, as with many of my works, the environment shows up as a supporter of, and a witness to, the difficult task of self-reflection and self-awareness. 

Amrita Pritam and the Eighth Color of Love

WW: How did you connect with Amrit Pritam and the idea of “the eighth color of love”?

RCT: Amrita Pritam was the feminist hero I wanted and needed during my early 20s when my own ideas of boundaries, space, and gender were solidifying. Her poetry and her way of life received almost contradicting treatment–her poetry was praised and her life choices criticized. Her choices contradicting what people expected from her was what excited me about her persona. Her poetry, specifically the poem from which I borrow the show’s title, stirred questions about womanhood, patriarchy, love, and humanity. I was intrigued to hear a Punjabi feminist voice, similar to my grandmother and mother, question and guide the way one can have love for country and how it can be achieved. It highlights the role women can also play in shaping a country’s future. With the current directions and changes in our own country, this poem and titles pose an intention of making this place a home for all through the acts of self-reflection, self-awareness, and love.

Color as Meaning and Destiny

WW: You stick to eight colors in your palette for this show. Why?

RCT: I assign each pigment color that I mix a lineage of emotions and reasons. Yellow lead oxide predominantly signals a place or moment of struggle for my characters, whereas Cinnabar red deepens the earthiness of the conversation in the painting by rooting the story in blood and earth. While I did not intend to limit myself to only seven colors in this show, I believe each show and painting has a destiny it fulfills on its own.

“I assign each pigment color that I mix a lineage of emotions and reasons,”

Rupy C. Tut

The title was chosen after the painting was finished, and coincidentally, only seven pigments were the foundation of all of this work. While this was a beautiful emotional coincidence, I do limit the colors I mix to maintain a thoughtful etymology of color as a conceptual building block of my work. As someone who seeks to make sense of our existence and purpose through my work, limiting my pigments to certain colors is to slowly build in layers a world full of meaning, purpose, and intention in my works.

Ancestral Presences: Water, Mountains, Trees

WW: Can you tell us about your use of pattern and repetition in your painting? Are there motifs you like to return to?

RCT: Water, mountains, and trees are ancestral presences in my work. Water symbolizes the fluidity of the world I navigate as a woman and as an immigrant. At the same time, lines that simulate water-like movements, like the presence of water or wind, mark the passing of time against the ephemeral nature of life. Are we using our time here to improve the world around us? Are we making use of our time here on Earth? These questions are posed by linework that is rendered using a small squirrel hair brush, which has about 3 to 4 hairs. The painting of these lines and their symbolism both speak to the passing of time intentionally in life and in the studio.

Mountains and their grand presence are symbolic of the way I view the presence of my ancestors, specifically their values and teachings, in my own life and practice. The landscapes around me and in my work become home if I can embody the stories and essence of my ancestors within them. I see land as an ancestor because for me, it is a vessel for the stories of my people. I create works with mountains comfortably holding ancestral figures as a way of marking history to include their stories and mine. 

I often say to sit under a tree is to sit under a tree, no matter where the tree is growing. Trees as arboreal ancestors support the protagonists as they explore new terrain and nourish themselves for the challenges ahead. Sweet Mango (2025), as an arboreal ancestor, allows room and inspiration for play, reflection, rest, and even restraint as these many versions of Self exist under it (The Blue Planet). With each mark and each leaf, the trees build slowly into important figures in the paintings. They sway the emotion of the story depending on whether I choose to make them bright, flowering, or reaching down towards the earth. 

Mirrored Figures and Inner Tension

WW: Can you tell us about “Tune In” and “Meet Me in the Mirror”—showing an almost mirror-like image?

RCT: As someone trained in biology and public health, I understand the world on a molecular and biological level and render its emotional qualities to bring myself and the audience closer to it. In both Tune In (2025) and Meet Me in the Mirror (2025), the two figures that seem like mirror images are not perfectly mirroring one another–the same way our vision of Self and reality are not always perfectly aligned. However, looking in the mirror is an exercise of finding those differences between our reality and what we want our Self to become. Tune In (2025) highlights the practice of finding stillness and pause to gaze into the mirror with intention and openness as a virtue.

Using my grandmother’s cymbals as a physical reminder of devoting time and energy to facing ourselves with truth and intention, the two women find a moment to see each other for who they are. To see ourselves and each other for who we are is a practice that is at the core of cultivating love for one another and a more equal world. Meet Me in the Mirror (2025) is a moment of also turning away from Self, which can happen to any of us. Are we steering from our core values when we make decisions that go against love for ourselves and fellow humans? Are we not able to take in who we are and who we are becoming? I believe the characters here are engaged in the discomfort of these questions, which I feel are evidence of humanity persisting in our world. If we cannot question ourselves and our own values and actions, then we could never collectively work towards a better world.

Protagonists and Possibility

WW: Who are the figures you wanted to paint in this work?

RCT: My figures, the protagonists of the stories, are a combination of me, my ancestors, the women I see around me, as well as women I want to see. In some of the works, these figures act as guides to show me and the audience a way, a solution, to tackle the complicated world around us. In some paintings, the figures are possibilities I want to create in this world, for me, as a brown woman and mother. The courage it might take for me to celebrate myself as a woman or to find a carefree moment as a mother are some of the roles the figures play to posture what I want to be doing. Some figures are also depictions of reality, and reflect the give-and-take I experience navigating the multiplicity of roles as an artist, mother, immigrant, and a deeply concerned naturalist navigating complex ecological, social, and political systems around me.

Landscape as Home

WW: What are the landscapes you found yourself imagining?

RCT: Landscapes figure into my work as homes that are accessible to us all, whether we find ourselves in our homelands or in a new one. In The Six Grandmothers and the Falcon (2025), the mountains and the grandmotherly figures resting and existing within them heighten this sense of belonging nurtured through natural markers. Similarly, a mango tree defines the epitome of a haven for all versions of the self to exist in harmony in The Blue Planet (2025). Landscapes not only underline the emotional state of the main protagonists but also emphasize home as a continuous character in my work. 

Storytelling and Contemporary Myth

WW: Do you see yourself as creating new myths, new stories, in your work?

RCT: My expression as a painter originates from storytelling as a powerful tool of gathering and preserving one’s personal histories. It is also a medium of undoing the erasure of my family and community histories. As a granddaughter of refugees, my storytelling roots are in the tragic accounts of my grandparents and their journey, leaving one homeland for another to secure their family’s survival. Storytelling for me is a way of saving not only ourselves but also the whole of ourselves. Without stories of my ancestors, my story would feel incomplete.

Similarly, without being able to write my own story in the present and future, my story would also feel incomplete. The protagonists in my work are mosaics of stories of my ancestors, my present, and a future I imagine for my children. It is a version of mythmaking that is rooted in truth and present in personal as well as ancestral experiences. In the Eighth Color, ancestral values and virtues of martial readiness, physical and mental endurance, and stillness as a daily practice are imbued in characters that fight for collective civic engagement, cultural preservation, and daily battles of confronting difficult choices in our present world. For me, the stories I tell are possibilities that hopefully guide, nurture, and document lives and people who are left out of history books.

Inside the Studio

WW: Can you tell us about your studio? What is a typical day like for you there?

RCT: My studio is a sacred space for me. It is where I perform the labor of making paintings as a way of marking my presence in this world. The work in the studio requires physical participation, mental focus, and slowing down, as well as a complete surrender to the material. My typical day begins with a scheduled hour allocated to no purpose or task at all. The day progresses into either making pigments, grinding them into a powder, mulling them on a glass slab for a few hours, and testing the recipe’s correctness. For a large solo like this one, pigment making can take about two to three weeks, with at least an hour dedicated each day to testing the pigments I will use on that particular day. The nature of making pigments closely resembles the nature of painting in my studio. Making pigments progresses from grinding stone into a coarse powder, then a fine powder, a paste, and finally, creamy paint. Painting progresses from a fine line drawing to an ink drawing to 3-4 layers of color application and finally three more layers of detailed intricate marks, as well as glazes. Both processes mirror a similar relationship with material rooted in patience, stillness, and grit.

Because so much of the studio work is physically demanding, I try to be as disciplined as possible with my body and posture, as well as my mental grounding in my core values. While planning and scheduling dominate the studio schedule, painting comes as a completely free process and the creative decisions flow without any inhibitions. The labor is grounding work that allows me to enjoy the freedom of painting even more. I believe this juxtaposes well with my other roles as a mother and a woman, where play and hard work are in constant interplay, striving for balance.

“The stories I tell are possibilities that hopefully guide, nurture, and document lives and people who are left out of history books,”

Rupy C. Tut