As you step into the “Where Waters Meet” exhibition at the Newport Visual Arts Center, you are immediately struck by the variety of mediums and artistic expressions shown in the space. Painting, photography, sculpture and film installations fill the galleries of the exhibition, which continues through July 28.
Leonard Harmon, a featured artist, also curated the exhibition, uniting five Indigenous artists to showcase their works and highlight the diverse range of Indigenous art.
Harmon & Leland Butler’s exhibit, “Walking on Eggshells” is featured in the Runyan Gallery. Isabella Saavedra’s “Memories at Night” is at Olive Street Gallery. Booker Bartow’s “South Beach Salamander” is in the Upstairs Gallery. And Chantele Rilatos’ “Woven from the Land” is in the COVAS Showcase at the Newport Performing Arts Center.
‘Walking on Eggshells’
Harmon, a self-taught emerging artist from the Nanticoke Tribe of Millsboro and the Lenape Tribe of New Jersey, is currently based in Siletz. He collaborated with Butler, a photographer, to create the immersive “Walking on Eggshells” exhibit, which features photography, sculpture and a video installation.
“This is more of an installation piece than separate pieces of art,” Harmon said. “So this is just part one of a bigger piece of work.”
The bigger piece of work is still in the process, said Harmon, not offering any hints besides the ambiguous theme of “Native Futurism.”
The mixed-media exhibit, which Harmon and Butler have been working on the past year and a half, is similarly interpretive.
“So what we’re trying to do with this work is not give you an answer on what it’s about,” Harmon said. “It’s more of a question mark. We want the viewer to be able to look at this work and try to get an aspect of what it means to them.”
Harmon met Butler by chance but describes their resulting friendship as being like two peas in a pod.
“I’ve always watched videos from being on the east coast of powwows out here like in Grand Ronde,” Harmon said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, I can’t wait to come out here.’ And then come to find out, the community that I live in — the people across the street is Leland’s family.”
The two see eye-to-eye on their artistic vision, Harmon said, which made their work together pretty straightforward.
“You know, it’s easy to work with people that you’re friends with,” Harmon said. “I don’t think I could have done this show with people that I didn’t know very well.”
‘Woven from the Land’
Each exhibit represents different mediums of Indigenous art, said Harmon, who chose each artist to show this variety.
“I could not have done an Indigenous show without a traditional Indigenous artist,” Harmon said about Rilatos’ exhibit. “When it comes to traditional work from this region, basketry is really the main thing.”
Rilatos’ woven work features clothing, jewelry and basketry. Rilatos collects the materials for her work by hand all over California and Oregon, even nourishing and harvesting some of the plants throughout the season.
“I think she’s the best around here,” Harmon said. “Especially for as young as she is. She’s going to be very, very well known.”
‘South Beach Salamander’
“I’m like the loose cannon,” Bartow said, describing his work which takes up all the wallspace in the upstairs galleries.
Spread across two rooms, Bartow’s pieces are chaotic and colorful, incorporating recycled materials and installation work.
“That’s how we grew up,” Bartow said, referencing the incorporation of used and found materials. “Just utilizing a lot of what’s around, getting scrappy with it … this sort of thing is just kind of my own interpretation of that.”
Bartow found inspiration in the work of his dad, Rick Bartow, the internationally-acclaimed Indigenous artist who who died in 2016.
“Dad had a show at the Karin Clarke gallery in Eugene and it was the first time I’ve seen some of his stuff in a gallery setting in a while,” Bartow said. “Just seeing how others interpreted it and the impact in dad’s post life … was eye opening for me.”
After observing his dad’s work and sensing the therapeutic nature of creating it, Bartow realized that there are no rules in art and gave himself the freedom to create spontaneously.
“I realized that I had to further embrace my ADHD and my lack of attention and create the space to embrace that,” Bartow said.
‘Memories at Night’
Saavedra, a Portland-based artist, created large tapestry and canvas pieces, which are displayed in the Newport Performing Arts Center.
“All of her work is really just astounding,” Harmon said. “Nothing like I’ve ever seen before … I don’t know how her work isn’t in more galleries.”
Saavedra’s pieces are unified by the theme of memory – she describes her body of work as optimistic, but realistic. Many of the pieces in Saavedra’s exhibit were painted while she was processing the Coronavirus pandemic.
“‘Memories at Night’ kind of has to do with this rumination of sorts,” Saavedra said. “I am recontextualizing these events. I am blending them with dreams and daydreams, but I’m also pulling from very real things that I don’t know how to process otherwise.”
Harmon met Saavedra when she attended an artist talk for one of his exhibits. He describes her as an under-appreciated artist and a force to be reckoned with.
Bringing lesser-known Indigenous artists to light has been Harmon’s goal for the exhibit, who admitted if he had a larger platform, he would love to do the same for more artists. Through the exhibition, he hopes to broaden people’s perceptions of what Indigenous art can be.
“I want people to have an open mind when they come,” Harmon said. “This isn’t your typical indigenous art.”
The Newport Visual Arts Center is located at 777 N.W. Beach Drive; open noon-4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; 541-265-6540. The Newport Performing Arts Center is located at 777 W. Olive Street; open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 541-265-2787; http://www.coastarts.org.
— Chiara Profenna covers religion, faith and cultural connections. Reach her at 503-221-4327; cprofenna@oregonian.com or @chiara_profenna
The Oregonian/OregonLive receives support from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to bring readers stories on religion, faith and cultural connections in Oregon. The Oregonian/OregonLive is solely responsible for all content.
