Every 8th grader in Montana studies how the Native Lemhi Shoshone woman, Sacagawea, guided the Lewis and Clark expedition team from present day North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and back - carrying her infant son. This expedition of Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase took place in the early 1800s. Nearly seven decades after Sacagawea's tour of the new American west, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer was defeated and killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and many Montanans feel that Custer got what he deserved.
On Custer's fateful day, his goal was to clear the area of the Lakota and Cheyenne and force them onto the Great Sioux Reservation. Thirty years after the warriors won the battle, along comes Edward Sheriff Curtis to photograph and document the North American Indians. He used his lens to create romanticized images of the American Indian. The photographs were accomplished from 1907-1930. By this time the American government had moved the American Indians from their homelands to reservations.
Curtis' work "The North American Indian in Forty Volumes" provides interpretations of Native people and culture through a distinctly non-Native lens. It was Curtis' photographs and a love of history that inspired Shapot's recent exhibit at the Brick City Center for the Arts in Ocala, FL, (Jan. 2018). Shapot created 30 cohesive paintings that reinterpret Curtis' iconic photographs. The painting: "Planning a Raid" is Shapot's interpretation of Curtis' scene from an re-enactment of the Battle at Wounded Knee, copyrighted 1907. Here, a party of Oglala Sioux reenact their former days as warriors.
The notes from the Library of Congress state that Curtis often portrayed indigenous people and their cultural practices in ways that obscured the ongoing process of assimilation. On occasion, long-haired wigs, tribal artifacts, and ceremonial clothing were used to enhance his nostalgic imagery. Shapot moves beyond the traditional Cowboy & Indian art stereotypes. Instead of using nostalgic imagery, he uses "Representational-Abstraction" to instigate a contemporary discussion about cultural change and loss.
Native American cultural loss and bereavement focuses on social structure, cultural values and self-identity. Granted, Shapot is not a indigenous artist, but his art demonstrates concern about Native issues, including water safety as the Federal government is now using eminent domain to install a new pipeline across scared tribal lands of North Dakota. His reinterpreted paintings use innovative methods that share Curtis' idealized past and celebrates the upcoming pow-wow season with representational teepees.
Shapot believes the the painting process is integral to the final result, every step counts. He uses paper palettes to arrange and mix paints, instead of using the traditional glass flat surface palette. He recycles these paper palettes, gluing them to Masonite boards and then paints over them. Painting on top of these palette pages creates a textured surface. He uses color and shapes to employ the representational side of his work.
Through his experimental process Shapot developed his own mix-media style. He describes it as "Representational-Abstraction". At first glance it is abstraction, but upon further inspection it is representational. In this regard it is new, bold, and when you step back and see the "representation" in his work it blows your mind. He is a 21st century modernist.
Shapot created a body of work that was out of his comfort zone and beyond his ethnicity. In this regard he ventured into the unknown, continuously experimenting. He is a young man from Citrus County, FL, with a BFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design (2009). He is also an award winning artist that frequently participates in Florida art fairs and group shows.
On Custer's fateful day, his goal was to clear the area of the Lakota and Cheyenne and force them onto the Great Sioux Reservation. Thirty years after the warriors won the battle, along comes Edward Sheriff Curtis to photograph and document the North American Indians. He used his lens to create romanticized images of the American Indian. The photographs were accomplished from 1907-1930. By this time the American government had moved the American Indians from their homelands to reservations.
Curtis' work "The North American Indian in Forty Volumes" provides interpretations of Native people and culture through a distinctly non-Native lens. It was Curtis' photographs and a love of history that inspired Shapot's recent exhibit at the Brick City Center for the Arts in Ocala, FL, (Jan. 2018). Shapot created 30 cohesive paintings that reinterpret Curtis' iconic photographs. The painting: "Planning a Raid" is Shapot's interpretation of Curtis' scene from an re-enactment of the Battle at Wounded Knee, copyrighted 1907. Here, a party of Oglala Sioux reenact their former days as warriors.
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| "Planning a Raid" 48 X 32 Inches Oil on Re-purposed Palette Papers on Cradled Panels Cypress Framed |
The notes from the Library of Congress state that Curtis often portrayed indigenous people and their cultural practices in ways that obscured the ongoing process of assimilation. On occasion, long-haired wigs, tribal artifacts, and ceremonial clothing were used to enhance his nostalgic imagery. Shapot moves beyond the traditional Cowboy & Indian art stereotypes. Instead of using nostalgic imagery, he uses "Representational-Abstraction" to instigate a contemporary discussion about cultural change and loss.
Native American cultural loss and bereavement focuses on social structure, cultural values and self-identity. Granted, Shapot is not a indigenous artist, but his art demonstrates concern about Native issues, including water safety as the Federal government is now using eminent domain to install a new pipeline across scared tribal lands of North Dakota. His reinterpreted paintings use innovative methods that share Curtis' idealized past and celebrates the upcoming pow-wow season with representational teepees.
Shapot believes the the painting process is integral to the final result, every step counts. He uses paper palettes to arrange and mix paints, instead of using the traditional glass flat surface palette. He recycles these paper palettes, gluing them to Masonite boards and then paints over them. Painting on top of these palette pages creates a textured surface. He uses color and shapes to employ the representational side of his work.
Through his experimental process Shapot developed his own mix-media style. He describes it as "Representational-Abstraction". At first glance it is abstraction, but upon further inspection it is representational. In this regard it is new, bold, and when you step back and see the "representation" in his work it blows your mind. He is a 21st century modernist.
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Jordan Shapot in his Studio |
What a wonderful blog! Thank you for sharing Jordan's work plus the process and inspiration behind it. What a talented young man.
ReplyDeleteTony I am so thankful for you sharing your art with me.