DYANI WHITE HAWK

An oblong shape emerges from dark navy water. The crisp and clear pool of water and emergent shape convey confidence and direction. In Self Reflection, artist Dyani White Hawk presents forms, lines, and colors in a style reminiscent of two artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s: Hard Edge painting and Minimalism. Her cool tones, colorful horizontal bands, and solid white shapes exude Minimalist philosophies that favor a painting’s formal and surface qualities rather than its underlying expressiveness. Yet Self Reflection also presents forms, lines, and colors found in Lakota abstract art history. The shape emerging from the water represents a woman’s moccasin top adorned with horizontal bands of porcupine quills, a mode of abstraction Lakota women have developed for centuries. White Hawk’s take on abstraction, with roots in Lakota, Hard Edge, and Minimalist art movements, emerges from self-reflection and understanding abstraction as if it were drawing upon the same universal pool of water—and the source of life for all humankind.