Last week was an exciting week at the museum with artist Lynnette Haozous, and her assistant Andrew Benally, here from Albuquerque, New Mexico. They were on hand to install Into the Sun, her temporary mural in the gallery for our upcoming exhibition, Mesh.” As a muralist, Haozous is often invited to create work that is large in scale and site-specific. We had an idea which wall to use, although she was unable to understand the space before she arrived for the installation. With only photographs and measurements Haozous had designed this mural in advance, but expanded it on-site to fill the space, spilling the design over into the adjacent wall. Pushing the margins of her painting was an apt move for an artist who uses her monumental work to “re-matriate” or re-assert the presence and power of Native women into colonial spaces such as the Portland Art Museum. We look forward to seeing the mural in combination with the work of Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Lehuauakea, and Leah Rose Kolakowski when the exhibition opens on November 6.
—Kathleen Ash-Milby, Curator of Native American Art
Lynnette Haozous, Into the Sun, 2021, with Andrew Benally, Portland Art Museum.
