Living and working on the Blood Reserve in the foothills of Southern Alberta, Canada, Faye HeavyShield’s sparse, conceptual artwork doesn’t often make its way down to exhibitions in the U.S. Pulitzer Arts Foundation curator Tamara H. Schenkenberg came across HeavyShield by happenstance a few years ago, but as soon as she did, she hungered to learn more.
Trap in Yellow Ochre 2, 1989, wall-mounted sculpture, three-dimensional, mixed-media, paint, wire and cloth, 169⁄16 x 1113/16 x 43/4 "
For the institution with a rich history of showing artists either directly associated with minimalism, or artists using that language of the spare form, HeavyShield felt like a kindred spirit. From this twist of fate and subsequent conversations with the artist, Faye HeavyShield: Confluences, an exhibition debuting March 10, 2023, at the St. Louis museum, was conceived.
“Yes, it’s spare, but I also think it’s incredibly bold. It’s conceptual, but also profoundly material, and then it’s incredibly poetic,” Schenkenberg says of HeavyShield’s art. “The reason I’m drawn to it, once I started learning more, is how it relates to her personal experiences as a member of the Blood Tribe, as an Indigenous woman. She’s able to speak so powerfully about those personal life experiences through her work [which] I find incredibly compelling.”
Trap in Yellow Ochre 1, 1989, wall-mounted sculpture, three-dimensional, mixed media, paint, wire and cloth, 23¼ x 1415⁄16 x 57/8"
The Pulitzer presentation features a selection of the artist’s drawings and sculptures from the 1980s to the present, reflecting aspects of her family histories, traditional Kainai legends, language and knowledge, as well as childhood experiences in the residential school system.
What does Schenkenberg mean when describing HeavyShield’s work as “poetic?”
“Something that with very little effort can carry multiple meanings. Something that’s subtle and elusive, but powerful as well,” she explained.
Two new commissions for the exhibition responding to landscapes and histories in the greater St. Louis area will also be on view. One deals with the Indigenous mound-builders in the area who most prominently established Cahokia, an epicenter for Mississippian culture with a population ranging from 10 to 20,000—the largest north of Mexico—from A.D. 1000 to 1350. The site is just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis in Illinois.
the red line (installation view), 2021. Photo: SITE Photography.
The other, which gives the exhibition its name, stems from a visit HeavyShield took to the famed confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers 20 miles north as the crow flies from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. It was here where Lewis and Clark set out on their “Voyage of Discovery,” the starting point in many ways for America’s westward expansion.
This piece builds on a decade’s long archive she’s been creating of close-up photographs of rivers. HeavyShield will add numerous images taken at the confluence and join them with the vast accumulation of similar photos she’s shot at rivers in Canada and the United States, creating a monumental installation. Thousands of 4-by-6-inch pictures will be presented as a monumental, 75-feet-long photo-mosaic, expressing the power and fragility of these river systems.
I’ll know you when I see you (installation view), 2021. Photo: SITE Photography.
The artist will additionally be spotlighted in St. Louis this spring and summer as the Saint Louis Art Museum has invited her to participate in its Native Artist Collaboration series where HeavyShield will take inspiration from the museum’s collection of historic Plains art in creating another new installation.
March 10-August 6, 2023
Faye HeavyShield: Confluences
Pulitzer Arts Foundation 3716 Washington Boulevard
St. Louis, MO 63108, (314) 754-1850, www.pulitzerarts.org
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