A new Native American-owned art gallery is set to open near the end of the year in Buffalo, New York, in the middle of the Allentown historic district. Founded, owned and operated by Dave Kimelberg (Seneca Nation of Indians (Bear Clan)), K Art is the first and only Native-owned art gallery of its kind in the United States to solely showcase the artwork of national-level, contemporary Native American artists.
“K Art is intended to help raise the profile of contemporary Native artists in the commercial art market and bring more focus on their work to art collectors and the market generally. The hope is to serve as a catalyst in increasing exposure to their narratives, their stories and their communities, all from a contemporary perspective,” says Kimelberg.
Lewis deSoto (Cahuilla), Six Minutes at Cambria, California, January 9, 2017 35.541563ºN, 121.093261ºW, K3 inks on Epson archival paper, 38 x 38"
In celebration of the gallery’s grand opening, an inaugural exhibition will be held December 11 through March 5, 2021. The show features the works of such artists as Jeffrey Gibson, Meryl McMaster, Lewis deSoto, Luzene Hill, Jay Carrier, Duane Slick, Brad Kahlhamer and Peter Jemison. “More broadly, our aim is to raise awareness of Indian Country in current society by viewing it through the lens of the work of contemporary Native artists. Ultimately, by helping to create more understanding and exposure of this work, the contemporary Native art genre as a whole will benefit and develop further,” says Kimelberg.
Jeffrey Gibson (Cherokee/Mississippi Band Choctaw), I AM A RAINBOW TOO, digital print, silkscreen, collage, gloss varnish and custom color, 38 x 34". Photo by Andrew Kist.
Photographer and multimedia artist deSoto’s Six Minutes at Cambria, California… offers viewers a unique experience in which to observe a landscape. “Basically, the process is a way to allow myself as the photographer to ‘look’ at a place over a long period of time and then recreate that experience in the studio,” deSoto explains. “Think of it this way: the upper left-hand corner of the image is six minutes away from the lower right-hand portion of the image. What you are seeing is a construction of a place from multiple viewpoints.”
Meryl McMaster (Plains Cree), Cougar, digital chromogenic print, 40 x 30"
A digital chromogenic print by McMaster, Cougar, shows us a man, the artist’s father, with various imagery cast upon his skin, giving him the likeness of a big cat. McMaster explains how she achieved the effect: “I gathered high-resolution digital images of animals within North America that held resonance with First Nations peoples. In the darkened room of the photography studio I used a digital projector to shine the animal portraits onto my father’s body. I painted his face and torso with white paint, like a screen, allowing the projections to appear more clearly on his body.” She continues, “With the images I am referencing the awareness one should have of one’s natural surroundings...In working with these digital images, it is a warning that with our continued impact on the planet, our connection and interaction with the environment and animals could become only memory, seen and experienced through simulated images and environments."
Jay Carrier (Onondaga/Tuscarora), Monuments, oil on canvas, 60 x 57"
Native artists are particularly innovative and far-reaching when it comes to the mediums in which they express their creativity. Other mediums viewers can explore during the grand opening exhibition include paintings, as well as ingenious methods of mixed media artworks that could incorporate a variety of disciplines like sculpture, photography, paint or textiles.
“We’re thrilled to have so many exceptional contemporary Native artists participating in our inaugural exhibition,” says Kimelberg. “This has been a labor of love and passion, and it’s exciting to see it exceed our expectations.”
K Art
December 11-March 5, 2021
808 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14202
(716) 768-3633, www.thek.art
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