Tyna Ontko’s yellow cedar carvings rely on a dedication to craft, an homage to the folk tradition of chainsaw carving popular throughout rural areas of the Pacific Northwest. The carvings’ forms are reminiscent objects that have specific utilitarian functions — a fencing mask, a catch all tray, a cowboy hat. The purpose these objects serve changes as they are excused from an obligation to labor and encouraged to play with imaginative potential.

Ontko’s practice ranges from sculpture, photography, to installation. She combines a background in dance and community theater with power tool carving to explore how labor and play interact in everyday experience. Her current project focuses on installations that situate the carvings subtle situations. Ontko finds joy in exploring the way animate and inanimate beings can touch and affect one another when they are freed from the performance of certainty.

Tyna Ontko received a BFA from Western Washington University with a focus in 2D media/installation and art history. She has attended residencies at Casa Lu in Mexico City, Mexico, La Wayaka Current in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont among others. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with exhibitions including those at the San Francisco Art Institute, Gallery 4Culture, Kunsthalle Kohta, and the Tacoma Art Museum. She has been the recipient of regional and national funding including a GAP Grant through Artist Trust, and the Undergraduate Fellowship through the Southern Graphics Council. In addition, she has an artwork in the permanent collection of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s North Terminal. Tyna resides in Seattle, WA, where she was recently nominated as a finalist for the Neddy Artist Award in the Open Medium category. In addition to her own practice, she is a member and curator with contemporary art space,SOIL Gallery.

Unless stated otherwise, all photography is courtesy of Josh True.

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