Speaking with the University of Miami 's "LGBTQ Studies" class Spring 2014.

"I was invited by professor Neil De La Flor to speak with his students about LGBTQ artists and art in Miami. I grew up here and so for me it was a very personal topic. I started at the beginning before discussing my coming out story. I shared my experience of growing up in Brazil until the age of 14 and dealing with the Brazilian youth bully culture before I even knew it to myself what it was like to be a gay man. Once here in Miami, where I went to high school, I was able to create a new life and environment, which opened myself up to different kinds of personalities and visions. It was only during college, however, that I felt comfortable enough coming out to my parents and friends. Besides sharing personal stories, I spoke about my work and my opinion on the gay and queer art scene in Miami, which I believe to be a very small one. This is a topic of interest for me, if anybody has any comments and or would like to share their opinion on the local scene or about queer art in general please leave a comment here." - Yuri Tuma

Yuri Tuma original artwork on the March 2014 Issue of "House Beautiful" alongside the brilliant Seth Steven in his beautiful home.

2014 Finalist: Miami New Times "Mastermind Awards"

Full article HERE 

Mastermind 2014 Finalist: Yuri Tuma Finds Strength in Repetition, Hopes to Help Others with OCD

By Kat Bein Wed., Feb. 26 2014 at 8:31 AM

3 Comments

Categories: Art

Photo by: Nicolas Guillen

Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. This year, we received more than 100 submissions, which our staff narrowed to an elite group of 30, and finally, nine. We'll be profiling those finalists in the days to come. This year's three Mastermind Award winners will be announced February 27 at Artopia, our annual soiree celebrating Miami culture. For tickets and more information, visit the website.

Art is always about expression and release, but for Yuri Tuma, it's something more: an indispensable tool for getting through life. The visual artist has battled obsessive-compulsive disorder for years, and the process of creating his uniquely mind-bending, spatially distorted photoscapes calms his mind. It's his mission to share his discoveries, as well as his creations, with those who have suffered like him.

"The act of creating these repetitious forms helps to alleviate the need for compulsive action," he says. "Instead of potentially hurting myself or giving myself some anxiety, when I do my work, it's completely the opposite. It takes care of that compulsion and that anxiety all in one, but also gives the [world] art."

See also: Mastermind 2014 Finalist: Regina Jestrow Turns Traditional Craft Into "High Art"

That discovery didn't come overnight. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Tuma moved to Miami with his family when he was 14. His first love was music, and he followed that path to Emerson College in Boston, where he majored in marketing and communications, with an emphasis on entertainment.

"I thought it would be fulfilling as a profession," he says, "but I found music is more of a hobby for me and not really what I want as a career."

See also: Mastermind 2014 Finalist: Jordan Marty Gives Old Technology New Meaning

Photo Courtesy YuriTuma.com.

While spending a year in New York, he discovered photography. Through the simple technology of a Nokia cell phone, he fell in love.

"Once I started photographing, I was like, 'Oh, this is what it feels like when you really like something,' " he says.

He moved back to Miami in 2008 and began his path toward artistic discovery by getting a proper camera. He continued to snap anything and everything and soon found himself drawn particularly to nature and architecture, two highly symmetrical subjects on opposite ends of the human spectrum.

Diving further into those parallels, he now digitally manipulates his original images into kaleidoscopic mirages, bringing forth new forms and feelings from each subject. Building façades merge into geometric patterns, and blades of grass become abstract art. The art has struck a nerve and earned the 30-year-old photographer regular shows at the Butter Gallery and elsewhere.

"I'm starting to reach that point where I photograph a building and I'm deconstructing a construction," Tuma says. "And from that deconstruction, I'm constructing something else through photography. The whole juxtaposition of that is becoming a cool little perspective that I'm playing with."

But behind all his endeavors remains the importance of harmony.

"I think that search and that transcendental knowledge -- the inner peace -- that's what will make each individual find a better place in their life," he says. "My art and my work is very much about transcendental meditation."

Interview for "mb! Mercedez Benz Avant Garde Diaries"

Full article HERE 

Studio Visit: Yuri Tuma

20.01.2014| EDITORIAL TEAM

ART

Self-taught “applied photographer” Yuri Tuma is bending the medium into kaleidoscopic works. He uses symmetry and repetition to create bright images including architecture, tropical flora and fauna and color blocks. The Avant/Garde Diaries visited Butter Gallery and his informal beach studio in Miami to discuss the resonance of his works as well as some exciting projects on Tuma’s horizon.

Repetition and symmetry are major elements of your art. Why are you drawn to these compositional tools?Symmetry provides a true sense of beauty and comfort to the subconscious. I believe it causes a sensation of relaxation and full unification to our immediate surroundings. We are all built under natural non-mathematical formulas that generate an infinite symmetrical construction in every microscopic particle that makes up the whole. In my experience, exploring and utilizing symmetry as a companion has made me feel connected to what I believe my reality to be. It has become a practice of transcendental mediation in which awareness can flourish in a very organic manner within my conscious daily activity. I have been able to reach a certain amount of peace within me I never imagined possible. We all have our stories and a past, and when I think back on mine, a story of obsessive disorders, anxiety and existential confusion, I feel symmetry has worked as medicine. You can really get to know yourself when your brain stops asking questions, and I believe symmetry provides that platform of quietness, distress and solitude.

How does architecture influence your choice of shape and pattern when creating work?To look at a monumental piece of Modern architecture feels like looking at the beautiful horizon. These monstrous pieces of glass, concrete and metal are mind defying. We may understand how a building is built, but at first eyesight the brain feels perplexed and paralyzed by its size, shape and reflective qualities. That moment of feeling perplexed and curious makes me positively overwhelmed, just as when I see a math problem being solved or the sun being set. It makes me feel small, but also makes me feel connected to all that is around. I get a sense that everything is and will be all right. This feeling helps me breathe, sleep and smile. Anything that surrounds us can be simplified and looked at as a shape. When I photograph a building I see giant shapes and lines that are symmetrically perfect. I use these images as a paintbrush wet of “perfection paint” in order to create abstract art on a canvas I call my computer and/or phone screen.

Tell us about your relationship to the sky.The best way I can answer this question is by quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson when he says: ”The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” The sky enhances every possible emotion. It will make you feel happy, or sad, or nostalgic, or melancholic, or excited, or afraid, or love according to how you are feeling in that specific moment you decide to appreciate it. When I look at the sky time stops and when time stops I feel free. In a metropolitan environment the sky is in constant relation to skyscrapers and anything that points upwards. It is a private interaction that happens above us as if it were a masterfully composed classical symphony or a contemporary dance piece. It is nature and technology making art together. Next time you look up in the city, observe how the clouds dance with these structures and if there are no clouds, observe how its clarity enhances the contours and colors of the building.

When did you discover photography and how did this change your process?My photographical aptitude dates back to 9 years ago when I started shooting with my Samsung slider cellphone. It was with that phone that I began exploring composition, light and subjects. It was love at first snap. In between falling in love with photography and applying it as a lifestyle, I purchased my first professional camera. I first started shooting commercially and encountered friends along the way that would become mentors. Some taught me in the field of photography, others in graphic design and technology, but also in the arts, philosophy and spirituality. It was a couple of years after when I fell in love once again, this time with architecture. It was when I first shot a structure interacting with the bluest of skies that I felt a true divine intervention. Symmetrical visions came rushing down on me and that was when I knew what I had to do and have been on this pursuit since. From that moment on, I applied all that I have learned and practiced every day. The mélange of photography and symmetry became not only a field of study, but an abstract teacher of philosophy and existentialism.

What projects are you working on now and what’s on the horizon?Art, fashion, travel, education, the Sun and the Moon are rising on the horizon. The Creative Director of Kruzin Footwear, Alessandra Gold, has invited me to collaborate on a line of apparel and sneakers to be released internationally this coming Fall. Before that, I will be preparing for a trip to Amsterdam, courtesy of Heineken, for wining their “Light Your Night Challenge” during December’s Miami Art Basel Week, where I experimented with light, mirrors and curtains to create a reflective pattern installation. I plan to expand on this concept once inspired by the “Mokummer” art and architecture. This past year, I also found myself involved and inspired by one of our generational art movements: “Mobile Art”. After presenting this highly controversial topic during an “Artist Talk” series produced by Product 81 as part of their Fordistas program, I felt compelled to present discussions and workshops that deal with editing artistries and the social and behavioral effects of mobile photography.

Learn more about Yuri Tuma HERE, Butter Gallery HERE, & follow him on Instagram HERE.
Portraits & interview by Sarah MK Moody / Work courtesy of Yuri Tuma

Product 81 Creative Lab Basel Series presents artist talk with Yuri Tuma

The Mobile Art Movement: The Death of Photography or the Evolution of an Art Form?

On December 5, 2013, as part of the Basel Series, a week-long program of dialogue and artist talks at the Product 81 Creative Lab, the Brazilian born South Florida photographer, Yuri Tuma, led an informative session on “The Mobile Art Movement” and its implications, possibilities as well as its points of controversy for the future of digital and photographic art.   One of the questions driving the discussion included, whether or not images created and shared through the cell phone represent the death of photography:  Does it represent a lesser art form or is it indicative of a fortuitous evolution of the medium?  According to Yuri, Instagram, the major driving force behind mobile art, has become, in the hands of artists, a platform for promoting their visions and careers as well as the creation of instant global communities of like-minded individuals. The oftentimes promotional nature of images points to a strategic element that takes the “instant” out of Instagram and brings up a whole series of human behavioral phenomena such as “posting anxiety.”  Nevertheless, the concern over how many people will “like” a particular photo may also influence in what ways it may be altered or what an artist may choose to do “fine artly” in the future based on responses.  With mobile art, the social aspect of photography becomes the grounds around which the medium is evolving.  Importance is being given not so much to technique but what an image can bring up– photography is now talking.  The once highly individualistic art form is now the center around which a variety of communities, subgroups and subgenres are being developed.  There is no doubt that with the mobile art movement, we are witnessing an evolution in which social media platforms serve as a communicative bridge that is not only transforming the field of photography but is also breaking through the oftentimes isolating experience of the gallery for both photographers and spectators. 

by Catalina Ramírez

- See more here 

I won :) Thank you "Heineken® "Light Your Night" Challenge 2013

Yuri Tuma announced winner of the "Heineken® "Light Your Night" Challenge 2013

From Press release:
We are pleased to announce Yuri Tuma as the winner of the Heineken Light Your Night Challenge!
Heineken® "Light Your Night" officially launched last night with the help of multimedia artists Yuri Tuma, Juan Carlos Zaldivar, Clifton Childree, Brandon Opalka, and Kevin Arrow who transformed the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse into a maze of light installations! Over one thousand event attendees interacted with the impressive installations, enjoyed music by DJ Pauer and Ess + Emm and cheered to the start Miami's Art Week with Heineken product. Heineken® "Light Your Night" serving as a platform for local artists, challenged five South Florida artists to interpret Heineken Light's "Bounce" campaign through the use of light. Heineken Light's "Bounce" campaign is inspired by the "bounce" of light and how light reflects and refracts. Tasked with using light as their inspiration, the brilliant creations by each artist came to life.
A panel of judges selected Yuri Tuma as the winner of the Light Your Night Challenge and has awarded him with a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Amsterdam, home of Heineken. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil and based in Miami, Yuri Tuma's Mirr(col)or Graphic used paper, mirrors, flashlights and transparency to create an interactive art experience. "The most interesting part of working with light was thinking about how it affects darkness," said Tuma. Viewers of Yuri Tuma's installation were invited into a dark curtained off room where they would shine flashlights on the mirrors revealing pattern graphics. In the center of the mirror, the message "Find Your Light" was revealed and shadowed on the curtain behind the viewer creating a beautiful display of light and darkness while sharing a poignant message that resonated with attendees and judges alike.