Like A Hammer, 2014, Jeffrey Gibson, Mississippi Band Choctaw/Cherokee, b. 1972, elk hide, glass beads, artificial sinew, wool blanket, metal studs, steel, found pinewood block, and fur, 56 × 24 × 11 in., Collection of Tracy Richelle High and Roman Johnson, courtesy of Marc Straus Gallery, New York, image courtesy of Jeffrey Gibson Studio and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California, photo: Peter Mauney.
Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer – Seattle Art Museum The first major museum exhibition of contemporary artist Jeffrey Gibson, “Like a Hammer” presents a significant selection of the prolific artist’s evocative and meticulous works created since 2011. Seattle Art Museum, February 28 – May 12, 2019.]]>
Source: Seattle Art Museum
Blending traditional elements of Native American art with contemporary art and popular culture references, the 65 works on view include geometric paintings on rawhide and canvas, a significant number of works from Gibson’s beaded punching-bag series, large and midsized sculpture, wall hangings, video, and multi-media installations.
A contemporary artist of both Choctaw and Cherokee descent, Gibson’s art draws on his Native heritage and reflects his own multi-faceted, multi-cultural identity. “It’s important for me to find the places where I’m not looking to adhere to cultural definitions around what it means to be Indigenous. Instead I’m looking to provoke an awareness of how meaning shifts from one context to another,” Gibson states. In his work, traditional Native items and materials, such as glass beads, drums, trade blankets, and metal jingles used to decorate powwow regalia coexist with elements of modernist abstraction, minimalism, and pattern and decoration. Utilizing bold patterns, bright colors, and painstaking detail, Gibson creates a unique and pervasive visual vocabulary.
Words play an important role in Gibson’s work. Lines from poems, his own writing, and song lyrics take on new meaning within the diverse inspirations in “Like a Hammer”. The text referenced above is Gibson’s original writing and is a statement at once specific and inclusive, much like the artwork that it is embroidered into.
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