Hattie Lee Mendoza: Gathering Joy
January 16-February 16, 2024
Closing Reception—Thursday, February 15, 5 p.m.
Artist Talks—Thursday, February 15, 6 p.m.
An exhibition of works by Kansas born, Illinois-based Cherokee artist Hattie Lee Mendoza opens at the Gardiner Gallery of Art in the Bartlett Center on OSU’s campus on Tuesday, January 16. Hattie Lee Mendoza: Gathering Joy is the first solo exhibition for the artist in Oklahoma and features roughly 100 artworks across a variety of media, including drawings, prints, sculptures and paintings, using techniques such as weaving, quilting, etching, appliqué and beadwork.
As a part of the Cherokee Nation diaspora, as well as Swiss-German, Scotch-Irish and other descents, Mendoza’s body of work investigates how culture and tradition is often diluted due to history and cultural climates or locations, and how they can be relearned and revalued. This results in a broad array of works that blend vibrant abstracted patterns, personal imagery, traditional craft techniques and cultural symbolism, into a collaged and layered expression of joy.
"Visitors to the Gardiner Gallery will experience the spiraling nature of Mendoza’s work which covers the walls and even, in some cases, the floor of the gallery in visual and thematic echoes of one another.” writes Emily Christensen in a review of the exhibition in Art Focus Magazine (Winter 2024).
Although Mendoza has never lived in Oklahoma, this is a homecoming of sorts for her. Her grandmother was born and raised in White Oak, Oklahoma and much of her work has been inspired by thinking about her grandmother’s legacy, including Mendoza's large quilt work Intertwined (Wedding Quilt) and Dickies (Grandmother’s Tribute Series), a set of her grandmother's dickies (detachable inserts to simulate the front of a shirt) decorated to represent different things that her grandmother had loved, such as flying.
In the two generations between us, it wasn’t emphasized,” Mendoza shared in Art Focus Magazine. “It was, ‘Oh, we’re Cherokee, and grandma’s very proud of being Cherokee,’ and that’s kind of where it was left. I always grew up interested in my Native heritage, but I wasn’t in a position to know what to do about it.”
Solidifying her ties to her Cherokee heritage, Mendoza won first place in the Emerging Artist category at the 51st Annual Trail of Tears Art Show and Sale in Tahlequah for her gouache and watercolor work Winter Has Passed, which is features in the exhibition at the Gardiner Gallery. In 2023 Mendoza also won first place in the Contemporary Basketry category at the 28th annual Cherokee Homecoming Show. Mendoza has shown her work prolifically in the US over the last 5 years and was recently included in the inaugural exhibition Native Futures at the Center for Native Futures in Chicago, Illinois.
The exhibition is on view Tuesday, January 16, until Friday February 16, and is free and open to the public M-F, 8-5 p.m. A closing reception will take place on Thursday, February 16, 5-7 p.m. with the artist present to give a talk at 6 p.m. Mendoza will also be offering an artist workshop to OSU art students at Prairie Art Center as part of her visit.
This Gardiner Gallery of Art special exhibition is sponsored by OSU student fees, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Oklahoma Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
View Photo Gallery of the Event
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