Exhibition features contemporary Diné artists
By Carmenlita Chief
Special to the Times
PHOENIX, Sept. 26, 2011
(Special to the Times - Carmenlita Chief)
TOP: Jeff Slim, 25, stands before his intricately detailed stencil work in which he employs acrylic and spray paints.
BOTTOM: Averian Chee, 25, poses beside "Kinya'aanii Lost Her Sheep," which is one of a handful of acrylic pieces the artist has on display.
A steady trickle of art admirers and patrons streamed into the Olney Gallery at Trinity Cathedral to view the work of Averian Chee and Jeff Slim.
Living up to the exhibition's name, Chee and Slim are vivid storytellers armed with paintbrushes, pencils, and an X-Acto knife.
"To narrate our own stories and to be a part of other peoples' stories is what we like to create," said Chee, 25.
His paintings feature contemporary Navajo people and landscapes and contain "subtle messages and inside jokes" that Dine viewers could pick up, he said.
Many of the pieces are inspired by stories they have heard or read about, whether Dine creation stories, their families' teachings or books written by Italo Calvino, an Italian writer they both highly revere.
Chee says that stories reside within everyone and that he and Slim simply want to tell theirs from a unique perspective.
"We try not to do so much of the Southwest feel," said Slim, 25, who is from Black Mountain, Ariz., but has been a Phoenix dweller nearly half his life.
To prove his point, Slim shared a story about a bilagaana woman he crossed paths with on the bus the day before. She had difficulty wrapping her mind around the notion that he was a Native artist yet did not paint horses.
Although he admitted that he didn't quite know how to answer her, he explained that he's not the type of artist who creates images non-Natives expect Natives to create.
But that's not to say Slim is disconnecting himself. Embedded in his art are remnants of cultural knowledge passed on to him by his father.
In a stencil titled "Atokai," the face of a woman wearing turquoise earrings is depicted looking skyward as her hair neatly curls away into the border.
"With the earrings, my dad always said that that's the way we are defined. It's the turquoise earrings that protect us," Slim said.
Another stencil depicts a representation of the Dine twin warriors.
More recently, Slim created a series of stencils based on an Italo Calvino character named and his adventures through the cosmos and on earth.
Slim is Tl'aashchi'i (Red Bottom Clan), born for Ta'neeszahnii (Tangle Clan).
Chee, who became a father to a son nearly one year ago, uses art not only to provide perspective into his life as shaped by his reservation hometown but also to shape his identity as a parent.
An oil painting titled "Spiral Womb on the Roads of Nazlini" chronicles a moment when his son was still in the womb.
Chee's paintings are infused with nostalgia stemming from his childhood growing up in Nazlini, Ariz.
"My paintings are a little more about the moments in everyday life that we used to have, and those moments are not here as often as we want them to be anymore," he explained. "So I try and capture them from a perspective that is odd, but familiar at the same time."
In straight-edged, repetitive brushstrokes invoking the style of noted Dine artist Shonto Begay, Chee uses colors inspired by the landscape of the Nazlini valley.
"When I create paintings, it has to have that movement or organic feeling," said Chee, who is Kinyaa'aanii (Towering House Clan), born for Ma'ii Deeshgiizhnii (Coyote Pass Clan).
The spirit of Chee's paintings is a serene complement to the lively energy created by Slim's style. Slim says his bold stencils are designed to be attention grabbers.
Though Slim is still relatively new on the gallery scene, he's been working as an artist since kindergarten and won his first art competition in the third grade.
When he was young Chee said extra money to buy art supplies was hard to come by, and his mother improvised and supported his blossoming talent by taking crayons from Denny's restaurants for him to use.
Their art gallery show was all about "good timing and opportunity," Slim says.
The two artists met the curator for the gallery about a year ago and they both felt it was the right time to exhibit their work.
The exhibition is their first major show together but they have been friends and worked together for years.
Both are members of a creative group called the Black Sheep Art Collective, based out of Flagstaff. The collective has allowed them to travel throughout the reservation and the Southwest to work on murals and art projects.
All in all, "our styles definitely differ from each other but in the same respect they also complement one another," Chee said.
Slim agreed.
The gallery also features the work of six Arizona State University photography students who spent the summer of 2010 experiencing life on the Navajo Nation in Chinle. The photographs come from an exhibition that was on display last fall at ASU called, "Dine Bikeyah: Familiar Views, Foreign Eyes."
The exhibition will be on display through Sept. 26 at the Olney Gallery inside Trinity Cathedral (100 W. Roosevelt St.). The gallery is open from Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Information: www.azcathedral.org.