copper gathering

2020-2021
acrylic, honey locust tree seeds & cotton cord on canvas.
67 x 49”

copper gathering contemporary Indigenous Native American abstract expressionist textured painting with tribal geometry circles adornment by matriarchal First Nations Plains Cree Anishnawbe artist Bebonkwe Brown (copper and black colors, detail))

This piece is part of the putting on beads & feathers series

it is also incorporates elements started in my much earlier natura directus et delectabilis series.

It is also related to the interTribal series

copper gathering continues my longstanding use of metallics and my practice of adorning the surface of my paintings with circles and/or elements gathered from the land. I place these elements in non-linear patterns that continue Plains Cree/First Nations fem-centric abstraction practices, including at times covering all or part of the canvas surface in repetitive patterns of culturally/historically used tribal geometries or materials.

For many years I have been implementing traditional Indigenous gathering approaches with/in urban environments/contemporary art contexts, and the use of seeds as adornment in this piece continues this (I gathered these seeds from under a tree down the street in my Brooklyn neighborhood, gathering them after storms as I often do, when they’re blown down from the trees). I’ve used natural, land-gathered elements like this in much earlier sculptural works and now incorporate them into my paintings.

This piece also continues my use of a very subtle approach in adorning some paintings with geometries made of the same or very similar kinds of surfaces as the painted ground. In this piece, it is adorned, in part, with itself.

the interTribal series

& the stardust nation series.