History Repeated

"I have a prayer, a spirit, a breath that is inside me," Ehren Kee Natay says in his artist's statement. "It tells me to create. It cannot be silenced. It can only be quieted by creating."

As a culmination of a recent Mary Ella King Native Artist fellowship, Natay presents a talk on Thursday that dives deep into his experience as a contemporary Native American artist. He's a walking dichotomy that teeters the line between contemporary approaches and ages-old unsettling history.

"This is where I'm at right now," Natay jokes in his studio, pointing to a blank page that reads only "Intro," all in caps, underlined. Around him are stencils and crates filled with empty spray paint cans. Natay's work is laced with cross-cultural heritage, gender roles and "cultural amnesia," all topics he no doubt will be broaching in his lecture.

As part of the fellowship stint, Natay plans on donating a recent work. It's titled "Outside/In," and features four figures surrounding a newly installed piping system.

The piece, his first watercolor, veers from his usual urban style, which is informed as much by his heritage as by the likes of Basquiat and Haring.

"It's a traditional studio-period, pueblo-style painting," the SFR Project Art Box alum says, pausing for a second and adding that the elders had it right in their resistance of infrastructure by the federal government.

Upon the completion of "Outside/In," news broke that South Dakota-based Rosebud Sioux Tribe would consider the authorization of the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline an "act of war." Proving thus that pieces like Natay's speak volumes now more than ever.

Ehren Kee Natay
5:30 pm Thursday, Nov. 20. Free
School for Advanced Research
660 Garcia St., 954-7205

Santa Fe Reporter