Dyani White Hawk
Dyani White Hawk
Providing further opportunity to unpack the broader history of abstraction, Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives, will present a ten-year survey of painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation by the Minneapolis based artist. This major solo exhibition of White Hawk’s unique merging of the abstract visual languages of easel painting and Lakota art forms, will also be on view from February 16 to May 22, 2022.
“We are honored to showcase White Hawk’s unique and innovative approach to abstraction and the incorporation of Native histories. Her work offers an opportunity for visitors to think critically and deepen their understanding of artistic history of the United States, drawing significant attention to Native visual history, an integral and underrepresented focus in American abstraction,” said Miranda Lash, Ellen Bruss Senior Curator.
Dyani White Hawk’s (Sičáŋu Lakota, born 1976) artistic practice is distinguished by a hybrid aesthetic highlighting cross cultural experiences. She uses techniques that abstract easel painters began using in the 1950s that foregrounded the expression of mark making and focused on form rather than representational imagery as a way to communicate concepts.
Combined with innovations in abstraction grounded in Indigenous aesthetics, the range of White Hawk’s work and influences speak to themes of identity and visibility, placing her at the forefront of dialogue on Native art as fundamental to American artistic narratives. She works across different cultures, histories, and visual traditions to emphasize the significance of shared histories between Native and non-Native people. Using this approach, White Hawk encourages conversations that challenge the lack of representation of Native people, arts, and voices in art movements and beyond.
The moccasin series, some of the earliest works in the exhibition, comprises paintings and works on paper created with blocks of color, thick striping, and arched shapes that evoke themes of balance and companionship. White Hawk abstracts elements of Native attire using stripes and dots, which highlight important intersections between abstract works of Plains Indian art and American Modernist painters such as Mark Rothko (Latvian, born 1903).
About the artist
Dyani White Hawk (Sičaŋǧu Lakota, b.1976, Madison, WI) is a multimedia artist and independent curator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Through painting, beadwork, installation, performance, and curation her practice challenges the lack of representation of Native arts, people, and voices in our national consciousness while highlighting the truth and necessity of intersectionality and relatedness across life. White Hawk has received numerous awards, including an Arts and Letters Award in Art (2021), McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship (2021 and 2014), United States Artists Fellowship in Visual Art (2019), Eiteljorg Fellowship for Contemporary Art (2019), Jerome Hill Artists Fellowship (2019), Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowship (2017 and 2015), and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2014). She has participated in residencies in New Orleans, Santa Fe, Australia, Russia and Germany. A major ten-year survey exhibition of her practice, Speaking to Relatives, opened at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in 2021, and travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver in 2022. White Hawk’s work will also be included in the 2022 Whitney Biennial.
Her work is in numerous collections including the Akta Lakota Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Portland Art Museum, Saint Louis Art Museum, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the Walker Art Center. White Hawk earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She will begin an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Art for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, beginning fall of 2022. White Hawk is represented by the Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis.