The Architecture of Solitude

In The Architecture of Solitude, Melody Tuttle presents interiors as psychological structures—spaces shaped as much by absence as by presence. Figures appear absorbed in private, quotidian acts—sewing, resting, drawing a curtain, extinguishing a flame—while other paintings omit the figure entirely, leaving behind rooms and objects that feel recently inhabited. These works function as portraits without sitters, where presence is registered through light, atmosphere, and spatial tension rather than depiction. Throughout the series, the female body—rendered in saturated oranges and reds—exists in quiet friction with deep, velvety grounds, collapsing distinctions between figure and environment. Darkness operates not as drama but as enclosure: an architectural condition that holds stillness, interiority, and pause. Taken together, the paintings frame solitude as a constructed space—one sustained by ritual, repetition, and the charged silence of being alone Melody Tuttle (b. 1985 Des Moines, IA) received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. Tuttle has recently been included in group exhibitions at Hashimoto Contemporary, New York, Hyacinth Gallery, New York, and Monya Rowe Gallery in New York. She has presented solo exhibitions at Thierry Goldberg, New York, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, Great State Gallery, Chicago, and Hyacinth Gallery, New York. A three-person exhibition at Rhodes Gallery in London took place March 2025. A solo presentation of new work is being exhibited at the Karpidas Collection in Dallas in 2026. This is her third exhibition with Hyacinth Gallery.