Works by Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Aaron Dysart, and Jeffrey Gibson installed

[Left to Right] Sonya Kelliher-Combs Remnant, 2016 (SITE SANTA FE commission); Aaron Dysart, Preserve 1, 2014 and Second Growth, 2016; and Jeffrey Gibson, LIKE A HAMMER, 2016 and Jump into the Void, 2016

Sonya Kelliher-Combs was taught from a young age about the interdependence of humanity and the environment. Indigenous teachings emphasize restraint in the consumption of natural resources-taking only what you need and appreciating the fruits of the harvest and hunt as a gift. As an artist, she has infused these teachings into her practice, which, like the material culture of the Inupiaq and Athabaskan peoples themselves, are multimedia works combining natural and synthetic materials. Her sculptural works rely heavily on sheep and reindeer rawhide, as well as marine animal gut, while her two-dimensional works are luminous constructions of acrylic medium in which disparate materials, from human hair to sewing thread, are imbedded. Remnant is a site-specific installation that comments on the threatened state of the natural environment of Alaska, a location where the folly of our human-centric approach to industry is achingly clear. As the artist asks, "What has gone so wrong that our shores are filling with the waste of others, the debris of twenty-first century mass consumption? The irony of technology intended to make our lives easier, more comfortable, is choking the water, land and air-causing irreparable harm." Within the installation, the viewer is surrounded by fragments and scraps of the natural world of the North: bits and pieces of animal hide, hair, and other detritus submerged in synthetic media like so many specimens from a way of life that no longer exists. These relics are reminders of the precariousness and fragility of life in this unforgiving terrain. They are treated simultaneously as precious, preserved vestiges and carelessly discarded garbage Kelliher-Combs pulls together materials that are captivating but sometimes disturbing in their raw vulnerability. Remnant invites the viewer into a dialogue that exposes the tenuousness of our own existence. In the end, is it really humankind that will be reduced to a mere remnant?

With his wry sculptural work, Aaron Dysart critiques society's obsession with fixing and "improving" the natural environment. He finds it amusing, if not disturbing, that modern civilization treats the natural world with distance, as something foreign that needs to be tamed or softened. As he puts it. "Humans are, of course, natural, but we like to think we are different." Dysart often uses trees to talk about this societal obsession. With Presemel 2014, the artist has set about fixing a portion of a tree limb by sanding down its rough edges and filling in, with pink and gray auto body filler, any dents or cracks that develop from the natural drying process. The result is a bizarrely patchy yet smooth and seamless log. For the counterpart, Preserve 2, 2015, the artist eliminates altogether the problem of surface imperfections in the wood grain by completely covering the limb in aluminum foil, a protective material that further removes the wood from its normal state. While the "fixing" of these organic objects seems absurd, in a larger context the desire to constantly improve or fight against the natural order often makes a problem worse. The artificial suppression of wildfires, for example, increases the fire hazards in many rural Western communities.
The lesson one takes from Dysart's interventions and playful absurdities such as a boat constructed of soap whose purpose is to clean a river, or underwear designed to cover tree branch crotches-is that nature is not concerned with our desires. Trees themselves are living creatures that seek to grow and thrive regardless of the obstacles they encounter. Slow-moving though they may be, their roots stealthily penetrate our plumbing and subtly heave our sidewalks. Second Growth, a live ponderosa tree, underscores this essential drive as bursts through the wall and reaches for the skylight above, oblivious to the sanctity of the pristine gallery space. Responsible environmental stewardship may require less intervention and more thoughtful understanding of our place in the world, lest we become the victims of our own doing.

Jeffrey Gibson uses a wide range of media to create conceptually complex, visually vibrant works. Starting his career as a painter, he pushed the boundaries of the medium, building up layers of pigmented acrylic that fought to escape the surface. His sculptural work ranges from organic forms created with the most inorganic materials to layered constructions of repurposed and found objects. He draws from various cultural influences-club culture, song lyrics, minimalism, and fashion-and employs materials as diverse as oil paint and fluorescent light tubes, a mix that reflects his equally complex identity. His dialogue with traditionally Native-American materials, such as hide and beadwork, confronts and challenges perceptions and expectations. LIKE A HAMMER, an installation and performance, is an amalgam of many of these disparate sources. Like the title's source, the Civil Rights-era folk song "If I had a Hammer," the work is both hopeful and defiant. At first glance, the work appears to draw on traditional Native forms, such as hide robes, the sound of the drum, and metal jingles. Despite the outward appearance of the performance as Native cultural practice-an easy presumption, since the artist is Choctaw and of Cherokee heritage-this work is far more nuanced than it seems.

Text written by Curator Kathleen Ash Milby for the exhibition catalog.