NEW UK EXHIBIT: STILL – Native American Photographers
15th March – 28 May, 2016 (RAINMAKER Gallery is the UK showcase for contemporary Native North American Indian art and jewellery.)
RAINMAKER GALLERY, 123 Coldharbour Road, Bristol BS6 7SN, UK
Artist’s Talk with Cara Romero, Thursday April 21st, 3pm-4pm
Artists’ reception with Cara Romero and Diego Romero, Thursday April 21st, 6pm -8pm
STILL showcases the recent work of fine art photographers Cara Romero, Will Wilson, Kali Spitzer, Robert Mesa and Zoe Urness. Their compelling photographic images of water, dance and stillness explore concepts of suspension and continuance in a rapidly changing world.
Global changes in climate, environment and economies have impacted significantly in the most vulnerable areas of the world, and Indigenous North Americans see these effects daily. Chemehuevi artist Cara Romero draws these delicate relationships to a fine point in her series ‘Water Memories’. Her breathtaking underwater images expose the fragile and essential relationships that exist between people, water and life. These beautifully conceived photographs show an immersed environment where the Native American figures are portrayed under the surface, suspended in a drowned landscape.
“‘Water Memories’ are photography dreamscapes dealing with Native American relationships to water, the forces of man and of Mother Nature. They are individual explorations of space, memory, and diverse Indigenous narratives that are both terrifying and peaceful.” Cara Romero
TOP PHOTO: Distinguished Diné artist Will Wilson’s tranquil, panoramic self-portrait captures a prayer offering by the lone figure of the artist within a vast waterscape.
“Since 2005, I have been creating a series of artworks entitled ‘Auto Immune Response’ (AIR), which takes as its subject the quixotic relationship between a post-apocalyptic Diné (Navajo) man and the devastatingly beautiful, but toxic environment he inhabits. The series is an allegorical investigation of the extraordinarily rapid transformation of Indigenous lifeways, the dis-ease it has caused, and strategies of response that enable cultural survival.” Will Wilson
From his on going series ‘Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange’ (CIPX), Wilson uses the early photographic technique of tintype to present modern static images of dancers in an historic fluid medium.
Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena / Jewish) also experiments with the wet plate alchemical process of tintype producing magical and magnificent portraits of contemporary Indigenous women who appear as if through an antique mirror. Navajo photographer Robert I Mesa captures fleeting moments of inter-tribal pow wow with his incandescent portraits of Fancy Dancers. Zoe Marieh Urness (Tlingit & Cherokee) creates timeless sepia toned portraits of Indigenous landscapes containing contemporary Native Americans still ‘Keeping The Traditions Alive’.
This exhibition presents technically and aesthetically brilliant images that together speak of the strong identities, cultures and connections to Mother Earth still thriving at the heart of Indigenous communities.
STILL is curated by Dr Stephanie Pratt (Dakota) and Joanne Prince Director of Rainmaker Gallery
To book for the Artist’s Talk with Cara Romero please contact the gallery. The talk will take place at Redland Quaker Meeting House, 126 Hampton Rd. BS6 6JE. The cost is £7 per person.
Further talks will be held at The American Museum In Britain with both Cara Romero and Diego Romero on the 20th and 22nd April respectively.
Chris Pappan, his wife Debra Yepa-Pappan and their daughter JiHae visited Bristol for the opening of their exhibition FIRST PEOPLE, SECOND CITY co-curated by Dr Max Carocci from the British Museum and Joanne Prince, Director of Rainmaker Gallery.
Artist’s Statement:
I am an American Indian. I am Osage, Kaw, Cheyenne River Sioux, and mixed European heritage.
I don’t walk in beauty, I just try not to step in dog shit.
I don’t listen to the wind, I listen to people’s cell phone conversations.
I go to Pow Wows to celebrate a pan-Indian culture.
I don’t walk the Red Road, I walk down Kedzie Boulevard. I live 20 feet above the earth.
I listen to Norwegian Black Metal and 70’s Prog Rock.
I need to learn the language of my people.
I make paintings to bring awareness that Indians are still here.
I distort images because people perceive a distorted image of Native Americans in the collective conscience.
I prefer the term Indian over Native American, but I use both.
I wonder why many people want to know what “percentage” Indian I am.
I am blessed in that I don’t know anyone who is currently addicted to drugs, been a victim of domestic violence or committed suicide.
I am blessed in that I have a loving wife and beautiful daughter.
I am an American Indian living in the 21st century.
(Indians are also known for their good-hearted goofiness, like Chris obviously… Lara/Trace)
Lara Trace Hentz 
Inspiring art. In this “late and soon, getting and spending” world, we have lost our way in too many paths leading away from nature.
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Yes, Professor, yes. Art is a path.
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