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Indians 101: The art of Terran Last Gun (museum exhibition) [1]

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Date: 2023-10-10  

An exhibition in the Missoula Art Museum (MAM) in Missoula, Montana featured the works of Blackfoot artist Terran Last Gun.

According to MAM:

“Terran Last Gun/Saakwaynaamah’kaa (Piikani/Blackfeet) centers his artmaking around the process of color exploration and visual documentation of nature, cosmos, cultural narratives, and recollections of home. Through geometric abstraction, he contributes to an ongoing Indigenous narrative through various media that include ledger drawing, Blackfoot painted lodges and the visual iconographic vocabulary that accompanies them, printmaking, painting, and photography. Last Gun’s work explores the varying relationships between color, shape, nature, and sky.”

With regard to the Blackfoot painted lodges, Blackfoot elder Long Standing Bear Chief, in an article in Spirit Talk News, says:

“When designs and symbols appear on the covering, then it is referred to as a painted lodge. When it is painted it is a special sacred place, because the designs mean that it is the result of some person’s dream or vision.”

Photographer Walter McClintock, in his 1923 book Old Indian Trails, writes:

“Each Painted Teepee had a sacred bundle and a separate ceremony. The pictures on the tepee cover and the ceremony that went with them could not be separated. They came originally through a dream and belonged exclusively to the founder, who might transfer them to another; but no one could copy them.”

With regard to formal education, Terran Last Gun received his BFA in museum studies and AFA in studio arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 2016.

According to the artist:

“My work bridges the ancient to the contemporary. I am creating a new Piikani art form that is bold, vivid, even humorous at times and has minimalist and geometric qualities that are potent in meaning, content, and place.”

Terran Last Gun also says:

“We’re in this resurgence [that] some people have referred to … as a renaissance. In pockets of our community, we have begun to succeed. We’re trying to get out of all the hardships we’ve had to deal with in terms of colonialism, settlers moving in, encroachments of land … all this stuff has hurt us throughout our history. When you think of our history, there’s so much horrible stuff that happened as the results of two groups of people coming together, so part of being an artist today is trying to bring light to the [history] and show that there are positive areas of who we are and that we are continuing to be here and exist.”

Shown below are some of his works from this special exhibit.

Shown above is Old Land, New Journey, 2019. Serigraph.

Shown above is The Above Beings Help Us, 2021. Serigraph.

Shown above is Moonbeam/101989, 2019. Serigraph.

Shown above is Untitled, 2021. Serigraph.

Shown above is Wandering Across the Plains, 2019. Serigraph.

Shown above is Sunbeam/101989, 2019. Serigraph.

More American Indian art

Indians 101: Serigraphs on paper bags by Terran Last Gun (museum tour)

Indians 101: Modern Blackfoot ledger art (museum tour)

Indians 101: The Sioux Sun Dance (museum exhibition)

Indians 101: Some later works by Yankton Sioux artist Oscar Howe (museum exhibition)

Indians 101: Sioux ceremonies by artist Oscar Howe (museum tour)

Indians 101: Caddo artist Raven Halfmoon (museum tour)

Indians 101: Exploring Glass Art by Native Artists (Art Diary)

Indians 101: Reborn Rez Wrecks (museum tour)

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