Yatika Fields exhibition opens at OSU's Gardiner Gallery of Art
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Media Contact: Lindsay Aveilhé | Gardiner Gallery of Art Director | 405-744-6016 | lindsay.aveilhe@okstate.edu
The latest exhibition at Oklahoma State University’s Gardiner Gallery of Art opens Sept. 18, featuring Osage, Muscogee and Cherokee artist Yatika Fields.
Celebrated for his distinctive contributions to contemporary Native American art, Fields’ innovative painting, sculpture and public art reflect a deep connection to his heritage and his commitment to using art as a means of social commentary and change.
Along with a new site-specific iteration of Fields’ “Tent Metaphor” sculpture series, the exhibition highlights Fields’ ongoing connection with Stillwater and the OSU Department of Art, Graphic Design and Art History. The show includes a selection of Fields’ landscape travel paintings inspired by his time at OSU, along with other materials related to his mural projects — two of which can be seen in Stillwater.
“I began doing the landscape paintings after a study abroad trip with now-retired painting professor Marty Avrett as part of OSU’s Sienna, Italy, summer program,” Fields said. “I have continued doing these in my travels around the world ever since. It is wonderful to be showing these for the first time at the Gardiner.”
The Gardiner Gallery will also serve as a dynamic studio space, where Fields will create a new painting over a two-day period. The new work will join a series of his paintings dating back to 2010, giving a comprehensive look at Fields’ artistic practice.
“This exhibition provides a unique opportunity for students and the community to engage directly with an acclaimed artist and to explore the impact of art as a tool for activism and positive change,” said Lindsay Aveilhé, Gardiner Gallery of Art director and the exhibition’s curator.
A public reception will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28. The event will feature a discussion between Fields and Tahnee Ahtone, curator of Native American art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, along with a tabling event for organizations and student groups connected to Fields’ artistic practice.
The Yatika Fields exhibition will be on view through Friday, Oct. 25. The Gardiner Gallery of Art, housed in the Bartlett Center on OSU’s Stillwater campus, is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
About Yatika Fields:
Born in 1980 in Tulsa, Yatika Starr Fields is a member of the Cherokee, Mvskoke (Creek) and Osage Nations. Fields studied landscape painting at Oklahoma State University’s Sienna, Italy, summer program before enrolling at the Art Institute of Boston from 2001 to 2004. While living on the East Coast, Fields developed a keen interest in street art. His dynamic, vibrant graffiti works quickly attracted attention, generating public and private mural commissions in Portland, Oregon; Oklahoma City; Phoenix; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Bentonville and Siloam Springs, Arkansas; and Urique, Chihuahua, Mexico.
Fields has participated in more than 40 solo and group exhibitions at venues across the United States and Europe, including the Southern Plains Indian Museum (2008, Anadarko, Oklahoma); Chiaroscuro Contemporary (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, Santa Fe); BlueRain Gallery (2015, 2016, 2018, Santa Fe); Peabody Essex Museum, (2015–2016, Salem, Massachusetts); Rainmaker Gallery (2017, Bristol, United Kingdom); the Grand Palais (2018, Paris); Philbrook Museum of Art (2018, Tulsa); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, 2019); and the Gilcrease Museum, (2019, Tulsa).
Fields’s paintings are featured in private collections and the collections of museums across the country, including Heard Museum (Phoenix); Hood Museum (Dartmouth College); Oklahoma State Museum of Art; Peabody Essex Museum; and Sam Noble Museum (University of Oklahoma, Norman).