2024 New Editions: Dyani White Hawk
Dyani White Hawk, Intersections I and Intersections II on view in the Tandem Press Apex Gallery, 2024.
Dyani White Hawk, They Gifted (Night), To See With Intention, and They Gifted (Day) on view in the Tandem Press Apex Gallery, 2024.
European and European-American institutions have valued certain people, communities, and art forms far above others for many years. Through her artwork, Dyani White Hawk critiques these value systems and challenges the lack of representation of Native arts, people, and voices in our national consciousness. As an artist of Lakota, German, and Welsh heritage who grew up within both Native and urban American communities, she draws from personal experiences as well as the history of Lakota abstraction and Euro-American abstraction to create works that ask us to think critically about how the mainstream retelling of histories has excluded vast segments of our population.
White Hawk often includes beadwork or quillwork in her paintings and mixed media works, stitching them onto the surface of her canvases. By placing materials integral to Lakota aesthetic culture over the top of painted marks on stretched canvas, White Hawk rearranges the hierarchy of art history. She acknowledges that when she incorporates Lakota artistic practices into works intended for museum or gallery spaces, they serve a different function than when used in spaces of cultural practice. White Hawk’s work critiques institutions that have undervalued and excluded Indigenous people and culture while honoring the foundational role Native communities have played in building the artistic and human history of this continent.
During her first visit to the Tandem Press studio, White Hawk created a series of five new prints that continue the work she has been developing as paintings and mixed media works while introducing a new form that has yet to appear in her work elsewhere. The central hourglass form in each of these new prints is a Lakota symbol called kapemni.
Dyani White Hawk, Intersections I, 2024. Click to view.
Dyani White Hawk, Intersections II, 2024. Click to view.
Commonly seen as two teepees connected at their apex, the kapemni represents a mirroring between the earth and sky, between the earth and spiritual realms, and ideas of balance and connection. White Hawk speaks to the ways this symbol encourages us to remember how we are all related to one another, the land, and all forms of life.
These five prints all begin with the same base, a brushy “underpainting” of layers of pearlescent white followed by eight vivid hues of blue, green, yellow, pink, and red. Then, the larger sections of color that form the composition are added. In these prints, the kapemni form is filled in with marks in multiple white or black tones to resemble beadwork and porcupine quillwork. Placing these bead-like marks over the underpainting mimics how White Hawk typically constructs her paintings. The zig-zag shapes that form the bottom and top of the kapemni also reference motifs practiced in Lakota beadwork and quillwork. In Intersections I and Intersections II, stretched-out chevrons flank the kapemni, accentuating its form. In the other prints, horizontal bands of color surround the kapemni. The horizontal stripes of color in They Gifted (Day) and They Gifted (Night) reference ribbon skirts—handmade skirts made of fabric and multiple colored ribbons. The colors of the ribbons can signify many different things, but overall, the skirts are highly personal and proudly represent the wearer’s identity as an Indigenous woman.
Dyani White Hawk, They Gifted (Day), 2024. Click to view.
Dyani White Hawk, They Gifted (Night), 2024. Click to view.
In a video produced by the MacArthur Foundation, White Hawk discussed the root of her thoughts about abstraction. “Abstraction is a global practice that has been practiced in communities for longer than I think we probably understand. It certainly is a practice that has been practiced on this continent pre-colonization by my ancestors. Distilling complex ideas and thoughts down to the most graceful and poignant gestures… That’s a human practice.” White Hawk closes the MacArthur Foundation video by sharing, “I hope that people walk away from my work thinking about how our history has impacted Indigenous communities… Thinking about our relatedness… Thinking about our interconnectivity… Thinking a little bit deeper about how our lives are connected across the globe.”
Dyani White Hawk, To See With Intention, 2024. Click to view.
White Hawk’s new prints depict a handful of abstract elements with distinct variations, each executed through dozens of screen printed layers depicting both painterly brushstrokes and hard-edged, confident forms. White Hawk’s work carries a richness and depth in both visual effect and thematic meaning not always found within abstraction. Her work is a pointed example of how abstract forms that may seem simple at first glance communicate truly complex ideas.
Dyani White Hawk, To See With Intention, 2024. (detail)
Dyani White Hawk at work in the Tandem Press studio, 2024
Dyani White Hawk painting a film that will be used to print a screen printed layer
Films painted by Dyani White Hawk that were used to create screen printed layers
Dyani White Hawk signing Intersections I in the Tandem Press studio, 2025
Dyani White Hawk signing Intersections II, 2025
Dyani White Hawk signing They Gifted (Night), 2025
Dyani White Hawk (b. 1976, Madison, Wisconsin) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work honors the influence of Indigenous aesthetics on modern and contemporary art. As an artist of Sičáŋǧu Lakota, German, and Welsh ancestry, she combines influences from modern abstract painting and abstract Lakota art forms. White Hawk received her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She served as Gallery Director and Curator for the All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis from 2011-2015. She has received many awards, including, in recent years, a Guggenheim Fellowship (2024), Creative Capital grant (2024), MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2023), Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2021), among others. White Hawk’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at institutions such as Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and Plains Museum of Art. In 2023, she was commissioned to create a monumental permanent tile installation for the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work is included in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Akta Lakota Museum, and others. White Hawk lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
