Joelle McTigue
Artist exploring power dynamics and influences of identity in public spaces.
Work in the Rubell Family & NFT.NYC Collections.
Initially inspired by Eames’ Power of Ten film, Joelle McTigue’s practice evolved after learning about Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682) and Seyâhatnâme, an Arab literary tradition that intertwines legends and folklore in travelogues. Evliya’s writing pushed McTigue to contemplate how history is as accurate as anything touched by humans.
History is neither finite nor tangible, aside from quantifiable markers, a writer crafts a narrative based on select resources with an endgame. Chosen morsels pass through the viewpoint of the communicator leading to fractures and reflections within records.
McTigue’s art examines how power dynamics and influences of identity flatten, amplify, and distort history. As an interdisciplinary artist, she manipulates work that leaves documentative remnants to encourage discourse on the subject. The most thrilling aspect of the process for her is finding the fractures and threads of power and identity at various junctures. The texts accompanying the artwork are the viewpoint of an outsider whose accuracy is fallible.
Control & Cooperation
Drop Minted on Foundation
Control and Cooperation examines gardening rituals and how public spaces embody changing power dynamics. Inspired by Eames’ Powers of Ten, the images transform into aerial botanical gardens with documentative remnants.
Exhibited at: Art on Paper during Armory Week, Photo London satellite event, INTERSECT Art + Blockchain Meetup During NFT London At The Institute Of Contemporary Arts
Submarine Tunnel: Bay of Kotor examines the creation of the submarine tunnel built by the Yugoslavian military and how it represents a desire for change. A militarized space constructed for sovereignty and security was repurposed as a public space for pragmatic and leisurely pursuits. Joelle McTigue manually transforms her photography of a submarine tunnel built by the Yugoslavian military to encourage discourse on its past, present, and future.
Montenegro’s Lustica Peninsula served two primary purposes: agriculture and fortification. The lush, steep coast dives into the Adriatic Sea on the south and the Bay of Kotor on the north. The peninsula’s 13 kilometers (8 miles) form the Montenegrin side of the bay’s mouth.
One of the defensive sites sits near the opening of the bay. Hidden amongst the trees, the decommissioned submarine tunnel encased in the hillside is nearly undetectable to the eye. The Yugoslavian military bored 100 meters (328 feet) into the stone in the 1970s.
Since Montenegro gained independence in 2006, it has strived to make its mark in upmarket tourism. As a result, the country retired several military installations and sold them for touristic endeavors, including luxury residences and resorts. Today, the submarine tunnel constructed for sovereignty and security welcomes the public for pragmatic and leisurely pursuits.
Exhibited at: NFT.NYC 2022 Times Square, The Boca Raton In Partnership With Lynn University’s NFT Museum
The Mediterranean Botanicals Collection: Bay of Kotor
Genesis Drop Minted on Nifty’s
Over centuries, mariners returned to the Mediterranean with seeds and plantlings. In The Mediterranean Botanicals Collection: Bay of Kotor, I examine how the pursuit of empires, trade, legacy, medicine, religion, and aesthetics forged the coastal landscape of the UNESCO protected site.
The bay’s naval fleet peaked at 300 ships to protect its prominent salt trade in the Middle Ages. But, its mariner history potentially traces back to the Balkan Bronze Age. Over millennia, great European empires (Roman, Ottoman, Venetian, Napoleon, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian) owned a piece of the Bay of Kotor for strategic and merchant gain.
Today the Bay of Kotor strives for architectural revitalization and preservation while maintaining its wild beauty and traditions. Venice, Italy, continues to finance the restoration of Kotor’s Venetian structures. Retired naval facilities around the bay have converted into five-star resorts and marinas welcoming mega yachts. Every year at sunset on July 22nd, sailors arrive for the custom known as fašinada, throwing rocks in the sea near Our Lady of the Rocks, a sailor-formed island near Pearst.
The Mediterranean Botanicals Collection: Bay of Kotor collection are manually-manipulated botanical photographs taken by McTigue within Montenegro’s Bay of Kotor. The work emulates stained glass to celebrate these roots of identity and nature through the contemporary window of technology.
Exhibited at: NFT Biennial, NFTBerlin, Miami NFT Con, Utopian Dystopia Kochi, Belltown Art Walk, The Boca Raton In Partnership With Lynn University’s NFT Museum
Less Subtle LA
Minted on Kalart
From orange groves and oil fields, Los Angeles’ metamorphosis over a century used its wealth to import influences into its public spaces. The entertainment industry, local politics, journalism, public relations, and real estate developments contributed to shaping a metropolis full of distinct neighborhoods. The city’s architectural follies, fame, façades, and fallacies uphold its mythical city of hopes and dreams, where inhabitants use location to define and refine their identity.
Less Subtle LA imitates stained glass to accentuate Los Angeles’ glorification of fact, fiction, and fantasy in its communal narrative.
Exhibited at: Featured on Kalart during Paris Blockchain Week
