Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) | looking for the land///found the weather | Viewing Room
In my work I combine the ceremonial traditions of my ancestors with new materials at the intersection of social and ecological justice, education, and Indigenous feminism. In the same way we receive energetic charge from contact with the land, animals or natural events, I hope to affect the viewer.
– SARA SIESTREEM (HANIS COOS)
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), looking for the land///found the weather, 2022, acrylic, graphite, logging crayon, gesso on BFK Rives paper, triptych: 70 x 126" paper
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Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present our first exhibition by Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) titled looking for the land///found the weather, which features recent paintings, sculpture, and installation.
Siestreem is a multidisciplinary artist who combines painting, photography, printmaking, weaving, and large-scale installation. Siestreem’s work includes social practice relating to institutional reform, community engagement and curatorial and educational practices surrounding Indigenous fine art.
Installation view of the exhibition, looking for the land///found the weather.
In the first gallery a painting installation titled medicine fills the space and features vibrantly colored multi-panel paintings on wood and on paper. Coupled with the paintings is an installation titled research. This is comprised of natural material woven baskets, 3D printed baskets, and slip cast ceramic baskets. Siestreem shared these as wayfinding objects, markers into and out of the spatial constellation.
MEDICINE
Installation view of the exhibition, looking for the land///found the weather.
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
fastened to the rock (blood, sweat, and tears), 2022
acrylic, graphite, color pencil and Xerox transfer on panel boards
18 x 18" each panel, 72 x 108" overall
RIGHT: Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), lovers land mass (sea fret), 2019-2022 (installation view), acrylic, graphite and logging pencil on BFK Rives paper, 75.5 x 47" framed, INQUIRE>
Installation view of the exhibition, looking for the land///found the weather.
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
the us postal service wins seven times , 2022
acrylic, graphite and color pencil on panel
20 x 20" each panel, 60 x 60" overall
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Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), mountains and the night sky, 2021, acrylic paint, graphite and color pencil on panel boards, 70 x 174 x 5"
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RESEARCH
The installation titled, research.
PROCESS
In this installation, Siestreem explores making baskets and dance caps in three different ways: hand-woven out of natural fibers, 3D printed with Nylon powder, and slip-cast in ceramic.
Listen to Sara Siestreem discuss her weaving practice
in this artist talk with the Portland Art Museum
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), science fiction crawdad trap (we used to eat from the stream), 2016 (detail), Red Cedar Bark (Siuslaw Forest), Mud Dye (place of beginning, Coos Bay) and Spruce Root (Jordan Cove), 9 x 7.5 x 7.5" INQUIRE>
In the second gallery, a multimedia installation titled ceremony includes sculpture, and paintings that interweave our collective reality of the present, coexisting with the past. Individual artworks communicate broader narratives through a kind of visual symbiosis. Bundles of suspended sweetgrass braids titled babies breath are situated next to the painted diptych, grannies, set in conversation to the sculptural work, minion: four-legged spider.
CEREMONY
Installation view of the exhibition, looking for the land///found the weather.
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
minion: four legged spider, 2022
Four glazed slip cast ceramic dance caps: Salmon vertebra, Abalone buttons, plastic buttons, Dentalium, Limpet shell, plastic beads, Czech white heart beads, Indigo dyed Diné Wool (Dakota Mace, NM), woven industrial cotton cording, Indigo (Linton) dyed yarn, canvas and thread
72 x 8 x 11" each, 72 x 84 x 11" overall
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RIGHT: Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), babies breath, 2022, Sweet Grass (Linton) and Hopi Red Dye Amaranth (Linton), 31 x 24 x 10", NFS
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
grannie (left), 2010-2022
acrylic, graphite, colored pencil, Xerox, lithograph, and newsprint on BFK Rives paper
70 x 42" paper
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Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
grannie (right), 2010-2022
acrylic, graphite, colored pencil, Xerox, lithograph, and newsprint on BFK Rives paper
71 x 42" paper
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Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), summertime, 2021, acrylic, graphite, Xerox transfer on panel board, 16 x 16" each panel, 88 x 128" overall
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summertime, 2021 (detail).
In the large-scale painting summertime, dynamic black and white geometric shapes of triangles and rectangles combine with the expressionistic immediacy of graphite lines and drippy, gestural red and yellow paints alongside photographic xeroxed imagery of objects and the artist’s hands.
The work resonates with an expansiveness that energetically extends beyond the edges of the massive, seven-foot-tall artwork. The intimate space heightens the immersive experience as the carefully considered arrangements hint at bodily entities as a confrontation of erasure and invisible, violent histories.
LEFT: Aretha Franklin (reigns supreme) 1942-2018, 2016-2018 (installation view).
With titles that entangle the contemporary and the ancient, her works combine allusion and metaphor and are exemplified in her recent titles including sun-flare, moonbeams, fastened to the rock (blood, sweat, and tears), tea with Kathleen, about a dead queen, lovers land mass (sea fret), black holes in the news (hot air), the us postal service wins seven times, here my dear (made in quarantine, to save your life), blue on the inside, lilac, and blue butterflies.
The titles intrigue, invite, and simultaneously safeguard their own stories; an act of love, refusal, and resistance.
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), lilac, 2015-2022, acrylic, graphite and color pencil on panel, 18 x 18"
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Learn more about the making of looking for the land///found the weather in this exclusive exhibition walkthrough with Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)
MORE INFORMATION
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Photo by Leah Nash
THE EXHIBITION
AVAILABLE WORK
PRESS
Learn more about Siestreem’s art practice in her 2018 talk at the Pacific Northwest College of Art