2025 New Editions: Marie Watt
Marie Watt prints on view at The Armory Show, 2025.
Marie Watt’s new prints, created during her first visit to Tandem Press in the spring of 2025, draw from her recent sculptural works in neon—a material that she considers akin to beading and stitching— that explore the expansive nature of color and light. In these new prints, twinned words rendered in neon hues radiate, evoking echoes or a call-and-response that speaks to shared meaning.
In Shared Horizon (Facing East), Watt constructs a glowing horizon composed of words referencing animals, elements, and histories that shape her understanding of the Eastern Door—the eastern boundary of Haudenosaunee territory, encompassing present-day New York State, southern Quebec, and eastern Ontario. The stream of words sits low on the page, with the blank space above suggesting a vast, open sky.
The horizon formed by this text acknowledges that, somewhere in the world, the sun is always either rising or setting—a reminder of our collective experience with this daily phenomenon. The work becomes a meditation on our shared connection to the land and the horizon, and how these elements can help us remember the many dimensions of what it means to be alive.
The horizon formed by this text acknowledges that, somewhere in the world, the sun is always either rising or setting—a reminder of our collective experience with this daily phenomenon.
Marie Watt, Shared Horizon (Facing East), 2025. Click to view.
Marie Watt, Signal, 2025. Click to view.
Marie Watt, Salutation, 2025. Click to view.
The twinning of language in Shared Horizon (Facing East), Salutation, and Signal reflects a motif central to Watt’s practice. She was inspired by Marvin Gaye’s song “What’s Going On,” in which Gaye twins each relation he names—”mother, mother; brother, brother.” “The doubled name creates an urgency, hurling the call longer and louder in space,” Watt explains. “From an Indigenous perspective, it is a call that continues and includes ‘grandmother grandmother; turtle turtle, water water.’ It is a call that carries back to our ancestors and forward to future generations, rooted in the belief that our present moment is inextricably tethered to the communities of the past and future.”
Salutation and Signal each highlight a single twinned word. In Salutation, the phrase “deer deer” is framed as a tender greeting for a loved one and an acknowledgement of a companion species. In Signal, the phrase “mother mother” invites multiple interpretations, resonating with the depth of feeling that can be carried in a repeated call.
Through these works, Marie Watt invites viewers to engage with language not just as text, but as a living force—one that bridges generations, geographies, and ways of knowing. By grounding her visual language in Indigenous worldviews and shared human experience, Watt encourages us to listen closely—to the land, to each other, and to the layered meanings that echo through time.
Through these works, Marie Watt invites viewers to engage with language not just as text, but as a living force—one that bridges generations, geographies, and ways of knowing.
Marie Watt signing the edition of Shared Horizon (Facing East) at Tandem Press, 2025
Marie Watt working in the studio at Tandem Press, 2025
Marie Watt with Tandem Press Collaborative Printmakers Jason Ruhl and Patrick Smyczek in the studio at Tandem Press, 2025
Collaborative Printmaker Jason Ruhl printing Shared Horizon (Facing East), 2025
Collaborative Printmaker Jason Ruhl printing Shared Horizon (Facing East), 2025
Marie Watt signing the edition of Signal at Tandem Press, 2025
An etching plate inked up to print an impression of Signal, 2025.
Collaborative Printmaker Joe Freye printing Signal, 2025.
Marie Watt signing the edition of Salutation at Tandem Press, 2025.
Marie Watt (b. 1967) is an American artist. She is a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians (Turtle Clan) and also has German-Scot ancestry. Her interdisciplinary work draws from history, biography, Haudenosaunee protofeminism, and Indigenous teachings; in it, she explores the intersection of history, community, and storytelling. Through collaborative actions, she instigates multigenerational and cross-disciplinary conversations that might create a lens and conversation for understanding connectedness to place, one another, and the universe. Marie Watt lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
