Yatika Starr Fields
About the Artist
Yatika Starr Fields (Cherokee, Creek, and Osage) is a standout among young Native painters. Living and working in New York City, his work is a vibrant and surreal fusion of Native imagery with both a pop and graffiti art aesthetic.
2009 Statement, Buoy Paintings-
"Signs of Survival"
My current body of work was inspired by the colorful Buoys from the coast of Maine. I saw poetry in their motion, tides moving in and out, waves thrash them about.
Seeing retired Buoys thrown in mass graves, I saw a colorful landscape seemingly appear out of nowhere. These sites are scattered all throughout Maine's coastal line. The stories of these colorful objects appealed to me. What life did they have in their prime in the waters? How did they serve their
Lobsterman? For answers to these questions I envisioned their stories in a series of paintings.
Many Buoys in North America have licensed colors that are given to the owner. Buoys must be painted with the color scheme approved by it's home state. Early whale hunting done by tribes that lived in the Northeast as well as the Northwest used sealskin Buoys. Painted with designs and symbols, they played a very important role for the tribes' survival. Charles Melville Scammon, an explorer, describes a whale hunt that took place in the Northwest in 1874. "The sealskin Buoys are fancifully painted, but those belonging to each boat has a distinguished mark."
Today, modern Buoys still carry a distinguished mark while playing their important roll in modern maritime. Using their shapes and colors as a starting point, I slowly discovered their importance in location and positioning. Not only in the waters but also on the canvas. As the creator of each Buoy I put forth on canvas it was my job to give them each a color scheme. I took into account what role they would play with each other in creating a harmonious composition as they swing or move. The goal was to find the poetry I first saw a color system set in an unpredictable landscape: the Atlantic Ocean. Where as mine were an unpredictable process of rocking colors in correlation to their counterparts.
For each painting done in this series I found a balance that felt right. Using their extreme colors and unpredicted movements, I felt I created visually what the word "Float" does. Uplift. Buoyancy. A sign of the unknown lying beneath.
Also included in this series are objects that pertain to the Osage ceremonial dance that take place each June.These objects represent how critical this dance is to protecting the Osage's cultural values. Vivid in their own right, colors vary from dancer to dancer. "On a June Saturday night a sea of color floats above the dancing ground." (A poem, June 20th, 2009 Osage County, Oklahoma.) Combining the two forces, both colorful and both essential for their own historical traditions I realized that colors even in small beads can float as the colors in Buoys do, in harmony.
Yatika Fields, July 28, 2009