Raven Halfmoon’s Towering Sculptures in New Mediums Debut at Salon 94

This season's exhibition programming at Salon 94 opened with “Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun)” this week, the solo exhibition of Raven Halfmoon (Caddo Nation). Halfmoon's sculptures are a captivating depiction of the paradoxical dichotomies of the natural world and human nature itself. Her work is rife with double figures, often glazed in opposing shades, which create a fascinating yet organic feeling. They remind the viewer that there is no light without darkness and that human beings are never wholly good or bad. Like the show's titular moon and sun, each being has its shadow, and it is unnatural to expect one to exist without the other. On view through November 2, this exhibition marks a pivotal year for the artist. Halfmoon's first institutional show, "Flags of Our Mothers", organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, will travel to Texas next year, following its debut at the Bemis Center earlier this year.

In the exhibition text written by curator and indigenous artist, Jordan Poorman Cocker, she states “Halfmoon’s newest body of work Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun) celebrates this legacy of Native American women and the marks we leave on the land. Through her monumental sculptures, Halfmoon reinterprets portraiture through a hopeful and distinctly feminist lens and honors the presence of women and femmes in full scale." The show is made up of Halfmoon's signature glazed stoneware pieces, as well as the artist's first monumental scale works in stone and bronze. Halfmoon refers to the two monumental pieces, "Dancing at Dusk" and "The Guardians," as family members brought to life by her prayers and spiritual intentions, as well as the considerable physical efforts it took to make them possible. Face to face with "The Guardians," it's easy to feel its commanding yet reassuring presence. One can't help but marvel at the 9-foot structure, the way one would at a mountain or a waterfall. That is the kind of natural, timeless feeling that Halfmoon has achieved with this piece. And while it is a part of Halfmoon's family, it's hard not to feel a personal, empowering sense of connection with this larger-than-life presence, whose existence feels nothing short of magical.