Symbols, The Door Opens: Maidu Museum Group Exhibition and Artists' Talk

Every third Saturday, the Maidu Museum and Historic Site in Roseville, CA has a Night Out at the Museum event.  This month's Third Saturday event was the reception for Symbols, The Door Opens, a group exhibition that is showing from March 19 - June 10, 2016.  The exhibition features the recent work of artists Alan Wallace, Alicia Siu, and Stan Padilla.  The reception for the show was from 6:30 - 8:30pm with an accompanying artists' talk at 7:00pm.   

The art of Alan Wallace (Nisenan/Washoe tribe) focused on symbols related to his culture and heritage.  One of Wallace's artworks, hedem poo (acrylic on canvas, 2015), was featured on the show flyer, which includes Nisenan words (in addition to the title) interspersed among blue abstract imagery and a violet background.  Interestingly, there is also a diagram of a chemical structure in the lower-right portion of this painting.  Many of Wallace's paintings in this show carried this composition and aesthetic; "scientific" imagery mingles with various Nisenan words.  A dialog forms between the scientific formal elements (even the bright colors suggest a sort of artificiality) and the Nisenan words and abstract shapes to the left.  The result of this dialog is ambiguous, but Wallace might be making a complementary connection between the worlds of "modern science" (the chemical structure and formulas) and his native culture (Nisenan words and abstract shapes).  Specifically, the shapes of both the abstract imagery to the left and the chemical structure to the right are similar in terms of shape, line quality, and color.  Likewise, the chemical formulas (such as OH and CH3) also resemble and blend in with the Nisenan words.  The similarity between the native and scientific words and imagery evokes a sense that both worlds are addressing the same subject but in their own language (for example, it could be that modern science, for all of its tangibility and "authority," is simply re-hashing what is already understood in Nisenan culture, such as the natural elements and other occurrences relating to nature).

Another one of Wallace's artworks, jamandi (acrylic on board, 2015), gives more insight on the artist's intent.   In the upper-left are what look to be images of test tubes.  Below these test tubes is an image of the "golden spiral," which is a geometric spiral whose shape is based upon the "golden ratio."  The golden spiral is significant because many forms in nature are based upon the shape in terms of appearance and mathematics.  Jamandi includes English words as well.  There are two phrases within the painting that resemble scientific notes that a researcher might jot down in a notebook, "application of mathematical models to the physical world" and "the mathematics of infinity."  Like hedem poo, jamandi seems to be an exploration of how science relates to the natural world and how mathematics and science are languages that try to understand nature and reality.  Overall, Wallace's work seems to be a semiotic exploration of both native and scientific languages.

Stan Padilla is another artist in Symbols.  Padilla is a mixed media artist with Yaqui and Mexican heritage.  Like Wallace, Padilla draws upon his culture as a foundation for his work.  The artists' talk was fairly brief (Alicia Siu spoke the most, but both Wallace and Padilla shared more on their artwork after the talk), but each artist had something to say about his or her work.  Padilla emphasized how he uses symbols as a connection to oral tradition and symbolic thinking.  One of his goals is to use symbols as a "universal language" that is understood by all.  All of his pieces within the show are united by their use of mixed media, such as "conventional" acrylic paint and mineral pigments.  One of his artworks, Ancient Languages, has a painterly quality with its color, texture, and that it features several miniature canvases that are placed on a larger one like a quilt.  The earth tones of the paint evoke a sense of solemn reverence, in addition to the appearance of the ancient symbols used.  After the artists' talk, Padilla elaborated that several ancient languages were used for this artwork, such as ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Chinese (pre-dynastic), and Greek.  The appearances of all of these symbols, especially if standing from afar, look similar; Padilla not only draws connections between all of these ancient languages and their accompanying cultures but also between ancient and contemporary cultures.

Alicia Siu (Nawat/Pipil/Mayan) is the third artist in Symbols.  Her largest artwork, Ge Portal (acrylic on wood, 2016), interweaves symbols from her culture, personal experiences, and dreams.  The painting features a baby girl (inspired by her daughter and a Hopi baby she saw) illuminated with orange and a starry blue background of outer space to the right of her.  "Ge" symbols (spirals) painted in off-white and magenta form a V-shape, the point of which descends and touches the "soft spot" of the infant, which is a point on a baby's forehead that moves with its heartbeat.  During the artists' talk, Siu elaborated upon the information given in the accompanying didactic panel.  She said Ge is the Zuyuan Mayan word for "Milky Way," which is the "place of origin" in Mayan culture.  The spirals are also significant in that they represent the conch shell and are found in many ancient Mayan and Nahuan artworks.  The conch shell, in turn, is also the symbol for "zero" for the emptiness within.  Zero is important in Mayan culture because unlike Western conceptions of "zero," zero is not emptiness or an absence but a beginning.

Siu further elaborated on the symbols within Ge Portal by recounting how she dreamed of a razorback turtle with the "three hearthstones" embedded in its back.  The stones represent the three  Mayan worlds of the sky, earth, and underworld (which are also represented by her three main blocks of color, the orange, blue, and colors within the V-shaped Ge symbols).  The turtle was another inspiration for the starry sky imagery in the painting because the three stones in its back relate to Orion's Belt.  Siu said that the story and dream of the turtle are especially meaningful for her because she saw an ancient Mayan mural at Bonampak (ancient Mayan site in Chiapas) depicting the turtle with the three hearthstones after the dream.  Much of Ge Portal is focused on the concept of "origin" as Mayan culture centers upon a cyclical conception of time, renewal, and re-creation.  Siu also discussed how, for ancient Mayans, astronomy, astrology, science, math, religion, and philosophy were the one and the same.  Lastly, Siu explained why she chose the V-shaped Ge symbols to coalesce on the baby's "soft spot."  She felt that the "soft spot" and the heartbeat it revealed related back to the "Ge Portal," the place of origin.  Siu's painting is intimate, personal, and complex with its multi-layered connections between the artist, her culture, and her exploration of symbols and representation.

 Flyer for Symbols, The Door Opens that features Alan Wallace's painting titled hedem poo (acrylic on canvas, 2015).

 

Alan Wallace, jamandi, acrylic on board, 2015. 

 

 The Golden Spiral.  A representation of the Spiral appeared in Wallace's painting, jamandi (acrylic on board, 2015). 

(Apologies for the lack of images.  Photography is generally not allowed within the Maidu Museum, but Alan Wallace gave permission for his artwork to be reproduced.)