Outi Pieski: Beavvit-Rising Together (2019)

Born in Helsinki, Finland, Outi Pieski is a member of the Sami people who inhabit the Sapmi region within the current geo-political boundaries of Finland, Denmark, Norway and Russia. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki where she received an MFA in 2000. Over the years her interests have broadened to include collage and installations. The natural surroundings of her northern homeland are often the subject of her art, and she pays homage to the Sami people through her use of traditional crafting methods and materials. Her work has been shown throughout Scandinavia, Europe and North America in both group and solo exhibitions and she has been commissioned to produce several pieces of public art within the Sapmi region. In recent years she has received both the Fine Arts Academy of Finland Award but the Finnish Cultural Foundation Grand Prize.

In 2017, when Pieski received the prestigious prize of the Fine Arts Academy because, the jury explained that she has the “remarkable skill to create a unique exhibition...which will invite people to immerse themselves into a special world shaped by her.” Included in the resulting Academy-sponsored show, was the installation Beavvit-Rising Together which, like several of her other pieces uses thread and steel to recreate the Sami shawl-crafting technique called duojiwhich traditionally employs leather, roots and wool. Pieski’s website explains that the name for the piece, beavvi, means “many good friends” in the Northern Sami language. It is also similar to the word beaivi which means “the sun” from which the colors of this installation are derived making it an obvious candidate for inclusion in this exhibit that focuses on the varying ways vivid colors are used by contemporary Indigenous artists.

(This piece is proposed for inclusion in A Splash of Local Color: Vibrant Hues at Work in Contemporary Indigenous Art.)

Comments

Lois Smoky: Lullaby (1930s?)

Lullaby is a tempera on paper painting by Lois Bod-ge-tah Smoky, Kiowa. The date this painting was created is in question, as will be discussed, since the year of its origin is important to understanding the painting’s significance within Smoky’s body of work. At first glance, the work may be seen as a simple portrait of mother and child. However, through a closer inspection of this intriguing piece one can both understand how it attracts the viewer’s attention and why it, unlike many of the works by Oklahoma’s Kiowa Five, including Smoky’s earlier pieces, compels the viewer to speculate upon the narrative which engendered its creation. In this painting, the combination of subject matter, technique, and presentation offer the viewer a more meaningful representation than The Five were taught to produce. Lullaby is comprised of two figures, a woman in profile and a child facing the viewer in a cradleboard. The two are connected by the woman’s upraised arms. In keeping with the style o

Julie Buffalohead: Indifferent (2017)

What is most striking about Julie Buffalohead’s Indifferent, 2017 (acrylic, ink, graphite, collaged on Lokta paper, (29 7/16 x 58 ¾ inches), may not be the image’s animal subjects set in contrast to a deep blue background, but, rather, its title. Armed with the word ‘indifferent’, the viewer comes to the work with a keener viewpoint, an informed perspective. One discovers Indifferent tucked away near the conclusion of the ‘Beings’ section in Yale University Art Gallery’s 2019-20 Places, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art exhibition, unframed and protected by a glass case. Approaching the case, it becomes apparent that the reason for this special treatment is the piece’s intriguing substrate--a thick paper (Lokta, according to the description) attached inconspicuously to a support at the corners leaving it free to subtly dip and buckle across its length. Even through glass it appears to have an alluring ve

Brief Review: Illuminations: Scott Prior at the Cahoon Museum

Each time I bring my cocker spaniel to the vet’s office I am mesmerized by an MFA poster that shows a young woman wearing a plaid flannel bathrobe sitting with an Irish setter at her feet that hangs in the waiting room. It, I discovered, is the work of Scott Prior whose combined technical ability and homespun subject matter I find uniquely appealing. Unfortunately, I’ve learned how infrequently the Northampton, Massachusetts-based Prior’s work is shown beyond local galleries. So, when I heard that Cape Cod’s Cahoon Museum of American Art had scheduled a Prior 5-decade retrospective for early spring 2021, I knew I had to make the trip. The Cahoon Museum was once the home of Cape Cod folk artists, Martha and Ralph Cahoon. It is easy to imagine that the well-maintained rooms once served as a living space, a fact that both enhanced and restricted appreciation of the 35 Prior paintings on display. Prior’s depiction of domestic

At the Art of the Matter

Search This Blog