Raven Halfmoon: Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun) is on view at Salon 94, New York
September 18 – November 2, 2024
Salon 94 is proud to announce the solo exhibition of Raven Halfmoon (Caddo Nation). Titled Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun), the exhibition features Halfmoon’s first monumental scale works in stone and bronze, alongside her signature glazed stoneware pieces. Taking the artist’s own dichotomous name as a departure point, the exhibition explores binaries – lightness/darkness, male/female, traditional/contemporary – as well as the liminal spaces between them.
Halfmoon’s work draws from the narratives of the Caddo Nation, highlighting her feminist lineage and the power of its complexities; through stacking and repeating imagery, she creates totemic forms that represent herself and her maternal ancestry while also reinforcing the multiplicities that exist inside all of us. Growing up in Oklahoma, a state with 38 federally recognized Tribal Nations, Halfmoon reclaims space for herself and her Caddo lineage, asserting an Indigenous presence and resilience through her colossal figures. Each sculpture is conceptually rooted in the traditional coil built methods of Caddo pottery, using customized clay that emulates the clay sourced from the Caddo homelands centered around the Great Bend in the Red River. Often incorporating contemporary elements like cowboy hats and cigarettes, her work bridges past, present, and future.
Marking a significant milestone in her artistic trajectory, a nine-foot bronze sculpture and seven foot travertine sculpture act as a powerful centerpiece for Neesh + Soku. Inspired by the Indigenous-built, large-scale earthworks and earthen mounds in North America (such as the Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma and the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, Ohio) as well as the famous Moai figures on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), they mark her first large-scale ventures with the mediums. The bronze sculpture, created in residence at Urban Art Projects in Rock Tavern, New York, and the travertine sculpture, sculpted in Carrera, Italy, maintain Halfmoon’s signature palate of red, black and white. This palette matches both the clay bodies she selects and the glazes she fires with – reds (after the Oklahoma soil and red symbol of the MMIW movement (missing & and murdered Indigenous women), blacks (referencing the natural clay native to the Red River), and creams (referencing the dualities of light against dark).
With her ceramic works, Halfmoon continues to explore the intersections and contrasts between traditional Caddo symbolism, ancient designs (such as tattooing and ceramic vessel construction – the latter mostly done by women) and pop culture. Her surfaces are expressive and show deep finger impressions and dramatic dripping glazes—a physicality that presents her as both maker and matter. She reinterprets ancestral and traditional narratives, indigenous identity, and feminine histories with her own contemporary perspective and context. Complementing these awe-inspiring sculptures are additional new works that dive into the interrelation of textile culture and womanhood, with works adorned with a dush-toh, a traditional Caddo hairpiece worn by women and girls during ceremonial dances, embodying the timeless spirit of female empowerment.
Speaking on the creation of the new works Raven Halfmoon comments: “These sculptures reflect the binary elements of life—darkness and light, ancient and modern, traditional and contemporary. I put considerable energy and prayers into each one, so in a sense, they are individuals themselves, and it’s a spiritual process. They are designed to stand powerfully and take up space.”
Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, founder of Salon 94, comments, “Raven’s sculptural scale in its monumentality, materiality and cultural storytelling is rare. Together, we imagined her ceramic work translated into stone and bronze which will be seen for the first time at Salon 94 this September. Her female figures are resilience personified in their star-spangled jeans, traditional headdress and graffitied in ancient Caddo symbols. Her sculptures command our attention!”
This solo presentation at Salon 94 celebrates an exciting year for the artist. Her solo exhibition Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers, organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, traveled to the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, and will be followed by The Contemporary Austin, Texas in 2025.
Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun) is on view from September 18 to November 2, 2024, with an exhibition text written by Jordan Poorman Cocker, curator of Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Raven Halfmoon (b. 1991, Caddo Nation) lives and works in Norman, Oklahoma. Halfmoon attended the University of Arkansas, where she earned a double BA in ceramics/painting and cultural anthropology. The artist’s work has been featured in gallery exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Raven Halfmoon just held her first institutional exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, entitled “Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers,” which will travel to the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in May 2024. Halfmoon has recently participated in long term artist residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT) and California State University’s Long Beach Center for Contemporary Ceramics (CSULBC CCC). Her work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Fine Art Houston (Houston, TX), Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI), Arkansas Museum of Fine Art (Little Rock, AR), Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS), Beth DeWoody Collection (West Palm Beach, FL), John Horseman Foundation for American Art (St. Louis, MO), and Forge Project Collection (Taghkanic, NY).
Contact
info@salon94.com
Salon 94
3 E 89th Street
New York, NY 10128
United States
Images courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 © Raven Halfmoon
Captions
- Installation views, Raven Halfmoon, Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun), 2024. Images courtesy of the artist and Salon 94. © Raven Halfmoon. Photos by Elisabeth Bernstein
- The Guardians, 2024, Bronze, 108 x 47.38 x 43.79 in / 274.3 x 120.3 x 111.2 cm
- Ti-ti, 2024, Stoneware, glazed, 6 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 3 3/4 in / 16.5 x 8.9 x 9.5 cm
- Sun Twins, 2023, Stoneware, glaze, 77 x 49 x 28 in / 195.6 x 124.5 x 71.1 cm
- Dush-toh I, 2023, Stoneware, glaze, 36 1/2 x 22 x 22 1/2 in / 92.7 x 55.9 x 57.1 cm
- Tobacco Prayers, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 30 1/2 x 29 1/2 x 23 1/4 in / 77.5 x 74.9 x 59.1 cm
- Grounded in Style, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 23 1/2 x 64 1/2 x 21 in / 59.7 x 163.8 x 53.3 cm
- NDN Rockstar, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 24 x 28 x 65 in / 61 x 71.1 x 165.1 cm
- Star Woman, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 16 x 12 x 8 in / 40.6 x 30.5 x 20.3 cm
- Bucked Off Again, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 25 x 12 1/2 x 14 1/2 in / 63.5 x 31.8 x 36.8 cm
- NWA- Natives with Attitude, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 22 x 12 1/2 x 13 in / 55.9 x 31.8 x 33 cm
- Faces of the Moon, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 11 1/4 x 15 x 11 in / 28.6 x 38.1 x 27.9 cm
- Balance in Light and Dark, 2024, Stoneware, glaze, 9 x 11 1/4 x 9 1/2 in / 22.9 x 28.6 x 24.1 cm
- Halfmoons and Horses, 2024, Stoneware, glazed, 16 1/2 x 12 1/4 x 11 1/2 in / 41.9 x 31.1 x 29.2 cm
- Sunrise in Binger, OK, 2024, Stoneware, glazed, 11 x 7 1/4 x 7 1/2 in / 27.9 x 18.4 x 19.1 cm
- Star Woman II, 2024, Stoneware, glazed, 13 3/4 x 8 1/4 x 9 in / 34.9 x 21 x 22.9 cm
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