‘Speak to Me’
Native artist Jeffrey Gibson pays homage to his influences
Artist Jeffrey Gibson pays homage to his influences in new exhibit.
At first glance, Jeffrey Gibson’s beaded figures call to mind American Indian dolls, especially the kachinas of the Hopi tribe.
But upon closer inspection, the colorful forms also pay homage to the iconic terra-cotta warriors of ancient China, the outlandish style of London-based gay icon and performance artist Leigh Bowery and the avant-garde aesthetics and philosophy of Afrofuturism.
“I would say they’re probably more Chinese warriors and Afrofuturism more than anything, but they really are a mashup of intertribal aesthetics. This for me is very much a combination of like a grass dancer and jingles, but then this to me is very much this kind of punk-rock studding going,” Gibson said, studying his “Watching Forever” figure.
“With Afrofuturism, one of the things that’s interesting to me about that is to try to project into the future what the possibilities could be about our survival and existence in the future, which has always been a 20th-century topic that there would be the demise of the Native American. But I think the idea of imagining or proposing what the future could look like, art is perfect for that,” he added. “I feel like I’m just putting visual triggers out in the world.” He may be of Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, but Gibson’s exhibition “Speak to Me,” a multimedia show fusing sculpture, fiber art, beadwork, ceramics and video on view at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, spells out an array of cultural influences —sometimes quite literally, as many of his wall hangings and standing sculptures incorporate lyrics from pop hits, gospel songs and rap music.
In other words, viewers shouldn’t expect him to stay in his own lane, so to speak, when it comes to creating his vivid, abstract works of art.
“I actually understand the purpose of lanes and categorization. I think it’s actually very helpful in many ways for learning and communicating. What I started thinking was that as an artist, if you begin to identify as an artist, I want to take advantage of everything that that allows. And probably one of the very first things is that you don’t have lanes,” he said during a private tour of his Oklahoma City exhibit.
Global upbringing
Gibson's art reflects cultural references he has collected from all over the world. His mother is originally from the community of Briggs, just east of Tahlequah, which is the headquarters of the Cherokee Nation. But Gibson’s childhood spanned much of the globe, including stints in the United States, Germany, Korea and the United Kingdom, as the family moved often for his father's job as a civil engineer.
He went on to study at the Art Institute of Chicago and later at the Royal College of Art in London.
“I think what I found when I was in art school and studying, the more that I tried to separate it, the less I actually felt like I was being genuine in terms of my experience, especially my experience of having grown up moving around, always being an insider, an outsider or a visitor or a tourist,” said Gibson, who is based now in upstate New York.
“Sometimes there’s a big advantage to being a tourist. There’s a big advantage to not understanding what you’re looking at, and then there’s this transition as you begin to understand and suddenly it’s difficult to see it as something else. That’s something that definitely interests me with the possibilities of what I work with.”
In the past two decades, he has continued to gained prominence as a contemporary American Indian artist. When Curatorial and Exhibitions Director Jennifer Scanlan started at Oklahoma Contemporary last year, she already was acquainted with Gibson’s work from her time at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design.
“When it contacted him —it was probably the first week I was working here —then he told me his family was from Oklahoma, it just seemed like the perfect fit to bring him here. I think his work is really accessible on a number of levels, so we knew it would appeal to a wide audience, which is exactly what we’re trying to do here. It also has lots of deeper meanings,” Scanlan said.
Dreams of spirits
The showpieces of Gibson’s exhibit are four man-sized, colorfully clad fantastical figures he said were initially inspired by a series of dreams.
“I didn’t really make the decision to really be an artist in life until my mid to late 30s. You know, I was exhibiting and had galleries, but just the feeling that the work had greater presence and resonance hadn’t happened yet,” he said.
“So, this series of dreams was very much about these kind of ancestral female figures that would guide me through this landscape, and they would always tell me, I guess, pieces of advice was how I read them at the time. This one, ‘Speak to Me in Your Way So That I Can Hear You,’ I remember was one of these figures kind of telling me to be quiet because I kept trying to tell them what I needed ... and they kept basically telling like ‘You’re not listening.’”
He said he thinks of the sculptures as “embodiments of these ancestral forms that are kind of like walking the Earth for hundreds of years.” They also are embodiments of various American Indian cultural and artistic influences, from repurposed tepee poles that make up one sculpture’s armature to the metal jingles, nylon fringe and artificial sinew that adorn their distinctive cloaks. The wavy lines of nylon ric rac call to mind the Seminole patchwork traditions, while each figure is topped with his version of a Mississippian head pot, an ancient art form he became interested in while searching for items from his own Cherokee and Choctaw cultures during a collegiate stint at the Field Museum of Natural History
“As far as the Native American content in the work or the references, what I’m making is not cultural practice, which is very different than a lot of Native American artists who feel that they’re really making things for their community, to represent. This work is very much a sculpture which is using these references, but hopefully making them in a way that they also relate to iconic sculptures of the 20th century and previous,” he said.
Words to speak
Some of Gibson’s influences are even more clearly spelled out —with actual words. Comprised primarily of a repurposed wool army blanket, his striking wall hanging “What We Want, What We Need” has the lyrics to the iconic Public Enemy song “Fight the Power” written out in glass beadwork.
“It was interesting: when I made this, I knew that’s where I was taking the lyrics from. But I hadn’t really connected what was happening with, say, Black Lives Matter and what was happening with Rodney King at the time when that song came out. But certainly after I made this piece, I realized how often I say want and need, and they’ve kind of grown in importance,” Gibson said.
“I think sometimes we actually are raised to believe that our wants are our needs, and I think always choosing comfort over many other things is really hurting us in many ways. Not understanding really what you need, there’s not an appreciation of having what you need.”
The title of the exhibit comes from another beaded wall hanging, “Speak to Me,” which he said comes from the lyrics of a gospel song, the kind of music that makes him feel connected to his grandfathers, who were both Southern Baptist ministers. He said he inherited both their Bibles —one is translated in Cherokee, the other in Choctaw.
“Because I’m trained as an abstract painter, I think very much in pattern and color and shape. But for me those patterns and colors and shapes were meant to express something specific. So text was always in the titles previous to that, and then I decided to start putting it directly into the work. And writing and authoring and voice became increasingly important,” he said.
“Realizing that, like, authoring a voice is really difficult for me, I started thinking about all the reasons why maybe many people don’t feel entitled to have any voice.”