White Buffalo Calf Women March

Inscriptions

Signed, lower right, in blue paint: Yatika Fields

Label

A celebrated painter and muralist, Yatika Starr Fields cites graffiti aesthetics as a significant influence on his work. In his practice, Fields reimagines the structure of landscape painting by bending the terrain and incorporating movement into his scenes. His paintings consider time, culture, and memory in their composition.

In White Buffalo Calf Women March Fields interprets a moment from the fight against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Oceti Sakowin Camp. This painting honors the labor of women-led movements at Standing Rock together with the Lakota oral history of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, a figure of solidarity, fluidity, and hope within Lakota and other communities. On this canvas, the feeling of hope is found in the liminal space of the highway and the vastness of the sky. For Fields, painting allows these subjects to exist as they do in the world, intertwined.

"My work begins swiftly and intuitively, as momentum shapes the composition on canvas. I challenge myself to integrate the physical environment around me with its unseen emotional life. Gradually the narrative of the piece is revealed. From here I work to detail the painting’s subject in nuances. My process focuses on fluidity of form and boldness of palette, bringing the unseen alive in a way that will inspire in my audience a revelation of ideas, color, and form; reshaping their relationship to what they take for granted." —Yatika Starr Fields

From the 2019 exhibition Portrait of the Artist as an Indian / Portrait of the Indian as an Artist, guest curated by Rayna Green

In White Buffalo Calf Women March Yatika Fields interprets a moment from the fight against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This painting honors the labor of women-led movements at Standing Rock together with the Lakota oral history of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, a figure of solidarity, fluidity, and hope within Lakota and other communities. On this canvas, the feeling of hope is found in the liminal space of the highway and the vastness of the sky, allowing these subjects to exist as they do in the world, intertwined.

My work begins swiftly and intuitively, as momentum shapes the composition on canvas. I challenge myself to integrate the physical environment around me with its unseen emotional life. Gradually the narrative of the piece is revealed. From here I work to detail the painting’s subject in nuances. My process focuses on fluidity of form and boldness of palette, bringing the unseen alive in a way that will inspire in my audience a revelation of ideas, color, and form; reshaping their relationship to what they take for granted. —Yatika Starr Fields

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

COCO 21, What's In Your Shoebox?, Francine A'Ness and Prudence Merton, Spring 2020

HIST 23, American History since 1980, Julie Rabig, Spring 2020

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2020

NAS 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2020

WGSS 10.01, Sex, Gender and Society, Douglas Moody, Winter 2021

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 12.26, Environmental Justice, Maron Greenleaf, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-June 16, 2024.

Portrait of the Artist as an Indian / Portrait of the Indian as an Artist, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 17, 2019-February 23, 2020.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Provenance

From the artist, Tulsa, Oklahoma; sold to present collection, 2018.

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Subjects