Mythology and Spirituality: Making Their Mark V

Gomes' sculptures embody a sense of feminine corporeality and dynamism, inspired by Brazilian dances, and using found fabrics that carry the histories of their previous owners.

For Berhanu, painting reflects the cycles of life. “I have always used my art as an attempt to capture the feelings and emotions that have accompanied me throughout the different stages of my life."

Describing herself as “thread conscious” from an early age, Sheila Hicks is one of the world’s foremost artists working with textiles. 

The Greek Orthodox Church played a significant role in Mary Grigoriadis' upbringing, and this early exposure to images of saints, and blue-­ and-­ gold patterned borders, left a deep impression. 

Of Haitian extraction, the Brooklyn-­based artist Naudline Pierre was raised in a spiritual household—her father is a pastor—and she attributes some of her visual language to her upbringing.

Native American history and heritage are at the center of Kay WalkingStick’s practice. Using paint as her primary medium, the artist explores the landscapes and iconography of the American West, renewing and recasting them as Native terrain. 

"As a Seneca person, our nation's creation story is about Sky Woman, who lives in the sky and falls through this hole, and as she’s falling she’s helped—assisted—by a motley crew of animals, who are our first teachers, and they help her survive." 

Save the Babies is made in the loosely defined shape of a shield. For the artist, this shape, thought to be capable of protection and healing, was representative of the works’ spiritual qualities.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's In the Future Map, addresses the global environmental crisis.

Rose B. Simpson is a multimedia artist and member of the Santa Clara Pueblo who comes from a long matrilineal line of ceramicists. Counterculture B is part of a series of monumental sculptural figures who serve as protectors of indigenous cultures and the natural world. 

Between 1961 and 1965, the artist made a series of large-scale works she called “space hangings”—some of the earliest three-dimensional weavings created in the United States.

Blurring the boundaries between media, these works are to be displayed, in her words, “suspended in space as sculpted paintings.”

A single curved line extends across a monochromatic field from one edge of the canvas to another. “Sometimes, it would take weeks just to get that line the way I wanted,” the artist later commented. “It had to be right—it had to flow like a strand of hair.” 

Adnan moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s, and a majority of her paintings depict the peak of Mount Tamalpais, which she could see from the window of her home. Her book, Journey to Mount Tamalpais, serves as a powerful account of this mountain as her muse. 

The graphic, corporal image reflects both nascent themes of second wave feminism’s reclaiming of the body and the influence of Italian radical design. 

American fiber artist Kay Sekimachi is perhaps best known for her otherworldly woven hangings in nylon monofilament, which she began creating on a twelve-­ harness loom in the 1960s. 

“I do not see the difference between a figurative sculpture and a figurative vessel," Odundo has remarked. Untitled Vessel, Symmetrical Series is representative of the gleaming, minimalistic forms that have come to define Magdalene Odundo’s output. 

Harriet Tubman and Other Truths, Scott’s largest exhibition to date, was an homage to Tubman (ca. 1820–1913), the formerly enslaved abolitionist. It featured an installation titled Harriet's Closet, a "dream boudoir" for Tubman, where Harriet's Quilt was a standout work. 

Takaezu’s signature form was a rounded, bottle-like shape with an opening resembling a nipple at the top, which allowed gasses to escape during firing. She is also known for the diverse methods of glazing she employed, from brushing and dripping to pouring and dipping.