Melanie Yazzie, Abstract Metal Sculpture Navajo Native American Indian Art Woman Pollen Keeper, 2008

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Melanie Yazzie (1966-)
Pollen Keeper II (maquette)
Powder-coated metal, 2008
Hand signed, titled, dated and numbered 2/30, attributed, titled, dated … Read more Melanie Yazzie (1966-)
Pollen Keeper II (maquette)
Powder-coated metal, 2008
Hand signed, titled, dated and numbered 2/30, attributed, titled, dated and numbered again to paper label
Mounted to a white composition plinth
Provenance: The Freund Family Collection

Melanie Yazzie is a Navajo sculptor, painter, printmaker, and professor. She teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Yazzie was born in 1966 in Ganado, Arizona, United States. She is Navajo of the Áshįįhí, born for Tó Dichʼíinii. She grew up on the Navajo Nation. Although she grew up on the Navajo Nation, Melanie Yazzie is of the Salt Water Clan born for the Bitter Water Clan. She first studied art at the Westtown School in Pennsylvania. Yazzie earned a BA in Studio Art with a minor in Spanish from Arizona State University in 1990 and an MFA in printmaking from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1993.
Melanie Yazzie works a wide range of media that include printmaking, painting, sculpting, and ceramics, as well as installation art. Her art is accessible to the public on many levels and the main focus is on connecting with people and educating people about the contemporary status of one indigenous woman and hoping that people can learn from her experience. Her subject matter is significant because the serious undertones reference native postcolonial dilemmas. Melanie's work focuses primarily on themes of indigenous people. Her work often brings images of women from many indigenous cultures to the forefront. Thus her work references matrilineal systems and points to the possibility of female leadership. Yazzie is known for her multilayered monotype prints that focus on storytelling and reflect her dreamtime friends and companions. The works are filled with colors and textures that reflect different world. The works are made with stencils and often she is printing with soy based inks called Akua inks that are safe for the artist and the environment. The works most often are printed on Arches 88 due to the absorbing quality of that 100% rag paper. It is a fine art paper made in France and very soft to the touch. It is a paper designed originally for screen printing but is the perfect surface for many of the works Yazzie creates. The works often are monotypes as opposed to monoprints. So the works are a one of a kind work of art and not made in multiples.
She is a Professor and Head of Printmaking at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She teaches printmaking courses and travels extensively to indigenous communities within the United States and abroad. She can always be found through the University of Colorado Art and Art History Department. In addition to teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts, the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design), Boise State University, and the University of Arizona, Yazzie has taught at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in France.
Yazzie has led over 100 international print exchanges over a 20-year time period. Many of these exchanges include artists from Siberia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Germany.
In 2012, the Denver Art Museum welcomed Yazzie as artist-in-residence, making her the first in the Native Arts department.
A selection of major exhibitions from the 1990s to present include "Between Two Worlds" (2008) at Arizona State University, "Traveling" at the Heard West Museum (2006), "About Face: Self-Portraits by Native American, First Nations, and Inuit Artists" at the Wheelwright Museum (2005), "Making Connections" (2002) in Bulova, Russia, "Navajo in Gisborne" (1999) in Gisborne, New Zealand and "Watchful Eyes" (1994) at the Heard Museum.
In September 2013 she co-curated the exhibition "Heart Lines: Expressions of Native North American Art" in Colorado University Art Museum, partially based on her private collection and including her work "Pollen Girl". Artists featured: Norman Akers, Maile Andrade, Kenojuak Ashevak, Pitseolak Ashoona, Corwin Clairmont, Jimmie Durham, Joe Feddersen, Craig George, Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, Imoona Karpik, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Larry McNeil, Kay Miller, Norval Morrisseau, Harinani Orme, Laura Shurley-Olivas, Kananginak Pootoogook, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Shawna Sunrise, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Kay WalkingStick, Marie Watt, Will Wilson and Melanie Yazzie.
In February 2014 she opened the largest retrospective of her work in 20 years at the University of New Mexico Art Museum titled Geographies of Memory curated by Lisa Tamiris Becker, Director of the UNM Art Museum. The exhibit ran through May 2014. A beautiful catalogue was published for the exhibition.
Yazzie's solo show, “Histories Beyond Homeland,” opened on October 8, 2015, at the University of Denver Museum of Anthropology. This exhibit consists of Yazzie's depiction of landscape drawings, drawn from the perspective of someone looking down at the earth. Works displayed use gouache, an opaque substance similar to watercolor paint, and handmade paper, in these aerial view interpretations.
The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico opened a solo show entitled "Memory Weaving:Works by Melanie Yazzie" in May 2018. The exhibit continued through October 6, 2018. » Memory Weaving: Works by Melanie Yazzie
Bibliography
She is included in books by Zena Pearlstone (About Face), Lucy Lippard (The Lure of the Local) and Jackson Rushing (Native American Art in the Twentieth Century). See less