Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present dance apron, our second solo exhibition of artwork by Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos). Featuring sculpture, installation works, and Siestreem’s most ambitiously scaled paintings to date, dance apron represents a continuation and evolution of the artist’s multifaceted practice. Following critically acclaimed solo presentations in New York and Miami, and in advance of upcoming museum exhibitions in New York, Oregon, and Montana, this exhibition coincides with exciting developments in Siestreem’s career.
Siestreem’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted in ecological and social justice, and her works draw inspiration from the land, the fight for women’s rights, and her Indigenous heritage. Her visual language is grounded in patterns drawn from the Coos weaving tradition and a specific color palette, which Siestreem calls her “first language.” As such, these new works carry intentional and layered meanings, infusing each work with both personal and collective resonance.
The exhibition’s title is drawn from dance apron, a new large-scale painting spanning 40 panels, installed in the first gallery. It combines hard-edged abstraction based on Coos weaving patterns with gestural brushstrokes and Xeroxed imagery of extinct Oyster shells from the Coos Bay estuary. Incorporating both Salmon and Scallop weaving patterns, along with the Oyster shells, the work references “first foods” and Indigenous lifeways. This monumental piece reflects both joy and sorrow: joy in tradition, community, and the beauty of natural systems, and sorrow for displacement, oppression, and ecological destruction.
Also on view, crazy quilt serves as a commentary on undervalued and often invisible women’s labor. Constructed from repurposed panels of previous paintings in reference to the reuse of fabrics in traditional “crazy quilts,” this painting shows the hand of the artist both figuratively, through her application of paint, and literally, with the inclusion of Xerox-transferred images of her hands weaving and holding baskets.
The second gallery holds an installation the artist has created to directly address this moment of great crisis and mourning in American history, and the colonial agenda that has pushed us to this moment. On the east and west walls, eight minion figures face each other. They are made of red, white, blue, gold and black elements to represent our country in mourning. They are titled black widow minion, a reference to the most dangerous spider on this land mass. These beings represent the people of this place, united and bound with one another and the land.
A critical reference to Manifest Destiny anchors this installation in the sculpture titled skyline. Across the interior of seven slip-cast ceramic baskets, based on a clam basket Siestreem wove from Spruce root, the silhouette of a mountain range against a golden sky is depicted. Placing the viewer at the foot of the mountains, these forms evoke the beauty, love, and desire for the land against the legacy of colonialism and present-day politics embedded within it.
In dance apron, Siestreem examines themes of land, culture, and identity, combining traditional forms and media with contemporary art practices. The exhibition underscores Siestreem’s commitment to ecological and social justice, Indigenous feminism and survivance, and the continued expansion of her visual language, making hers a leading voice in contemporary art on this land mass.
