Mikayla Patton
Visitation
Roswell Artist-in-Residence Exhibition
September 4 - October 10, 2021
Visitation is the interaction between Patton's current work and a beaded Lakota dress, which she borrowed from its confinement within the Museum's Aston Collection display. She sees this dress as a relative, every bead and every fringe is full of energy, similar to the vessels within her current installation. Accompanying the dress, will be handcrafted vessels. Dressed in handmade paper, acrylic, porcupine quills, deer lace, and pigments, her vessels are adorned with Lakota motifs of power, and are extensions of something familiar.
The traveling trunk known as parfleche, plays an important role in many Plains tribes. Its purpose was vital during time of travel, it was needed to carry belongings. The embellishment of the parfleche was strongly painted by women with earth pigments and abstract symbolism. The designs could tell stories, dreams, experiences and where made for specific people. Though representative, the utilitarian trunk may also have been a spiritual form of map and record keeping of land through powerful line formations. Originally made from rawhide (animal skin beaten flat and dried until hard), parfleche is a significant thread of Lakota lineage, intersecting my ancestors' ingenuity with contemporary Lakota expression.
Mikayla Patton (she/her) is an off-rez, Oglala Lakota, Queer, and mixed media artist. She was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation in so-called South Dakota where her Lakota relatives' homelands surround the Paha Sapa (Black Hills). In 2019, Patton obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in printmaking from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at the Chiaroscuro Contemporary Gallery (Santa Fe); Texas Tech School of Art (Lubbock); All My Relations Gallery (Minneapolis); and the Rainmaker Gallery (Bristol). As of 2020, Patton has received the Goodman Aspiring Artist fellowship through the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture; Artist in Business Leadership from First Peoples Fund; and the Ronald and Susan Dubin fellowship through the Indian Arts and Research Center.
To learn more about the artist please visit: https://mikaylapatton.com