She Creates Beauty

Native artist Eve-Lauryn LaFountain's new show at MoCNA is brilliant

Eve-Lauryn LaFountain may live in Los Angeles these days, but the Jewish and Turtle Mountain Chippewa multimedia artist grew up right here in Santa Fe. As an experimental filmmaker, photographer and all-around badass, LaFountain has shown her work in film fests, art markets, our own annual Indian Market and exhibitions all over the country, won awards like the Ebner International Trophy and all the while pushed her personal limits as a female multiethnic experimentalist. If that sounds impressive, it’s because it straight up is.

LaFountain's current show at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, titled Waabanishimo (She Dances Till Daylight), finds her showcasing the juxtaposition between what is expected of her as a Native artist versus the reality and space she actually inhabits.

Through the use of long-exposure photography, she highlights the intersection of nature and civilization, including ghostly after-images of lights attached to her person during ceremonial dance pieces she choreographs herself, as well as the mathematical patterns of planes' skyward trajectories, the busy cars hurtling along the freeways of Los Angeles or the explosions of citywide fireworks appearing above the LA skyline on the Fourth of July.

"It started with a simple smudging ceremony, the lighting of sage in an abalone shell and the cardinal directions," LaFountain says. "It's supposed to be kind of funny, but I'm not sure the funny gets across, but it's supposed to be kind of funny, because it plays with the stereotypes of what people think Native American ceremonies and art should be like."

Take, for example, Akiing: Nawadizo (Earth: She Catches Fire). We see fractal-like circular emanations of unearthly purple light surround LaFountain as chaotic blue squiggles dance before her and at her feet. The eerie glow of the lights stand out starkly against the looming darkness of the arboreal background, and the distant glimmer of the city evokes the feeling that she has somehow stepped between the planes of existence. LaFountain feels an affinity for her heritage, and for the planet, but considers both the natural world and the man-made coldness of civilization equally valid inspirations for her subject matter.

No piece, however, encapsulates the concept of being split between two realities more than Ningaabii'anong: Indabaabasige (West: She Smudges Things). With the long exposure technique, the self-portrait blurs and makes translucent LaFountain's presence from a rooftop, high above the cityscape. Light bursts from everywhere, and flames dance and flicker from within her. The moon becomes a tubular blur in the sky, and the last rosy hint of the sunset peeks up from just beyond the horizon.

And though LaFountain embarked on this project as a means of rediscovering and realigning herself with her roots—she even says that researching the original Ojibwe for the artwork titles spurred her to further explore her background via language—the entire show is indicative of an unfortunate pigeonholing of Native art by asking the question, do we demand certain or unfair things from Native artists?

"Doing Indian Market for years has given me a perspective on the way people make art for shows like that, and those ideas are obviously still very important for Native people," she says. "Of course our work is going to be informed by our identities, but I do notice that it can make people feel almost uncomfortable when it isn't what they're expecting."

This falls in line with direction MoCNA has been taking of late. For lack of a better word, the way the museum has been rebranding and offering more experimental art and artists is not only refreshing, it is an important cultural step in a town like Santa Fe. When art collectors from other markets come to visit and buy and then seemingly dictate that Native art must check off boxes on some arbitrary, imagined array of tropes and stereotypes, it damages potential creativity and thus suppresses the always important ability for artists to constantly reset boundaries. In a nutshell, Waabanishimo (She Dances Till Daylight) explores this through stunning, unspoken beauty.

Waabanishimo (She Dances Till Daylight)
Through Dec. 31
MoCNA
108 Cathedral Place
983-1666

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