For thirty years, Duane Slick has been creating work that integrates his Native American heritage. In his ongoing painting series that references the coyote, Slick plays with the beauty and the tragedy of his heritage, weaving the mythology and folklore of Indigenous culture with Modernist abstraction style. Like the wolf, the buffalo, and the grizzly bear, the coyote was hunted down and killed by European settlers because of fear for the safety of their livestock. The violence towards these animals parallels the genocide waged against Native Americans in the United States.
“The coyote doesn’t just embody Native America—it is Native America, with the animal’s roots on the continent going back into the early Pleistocene Epoch, two and half million years ago. Slick has taken on the mantle of the coyote to convey both the beauty and the tragedy of his heritage: in the artist’s work there is room for the coyote’s laughter and its tears.” – (Page 6, Richard Klein, Exhibition Director.)
In Slick’s paintings, the coyote speaks.
This November, we are celebrating Native American Heritage Month by sharing some of our new acquisitions for Native American artists, including the exhibition catalog for “Duane Slick : the coyote makes the sunset better,” previously on view at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT.
Image 1: Book cover
Image 2: Left page; “Red Eye,” Right page; “Black Snout,” both Acrylic on linen, 14”x11, 2020
Duane Slick : the coyote makes the sunset better Attribution [essay by curator Richard Klein]. Author / Creator Slick, Duane Ridgefield, Conn. : Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 2022. 87 pages : color illustrations ; 28 cm English Published on occasion of the exhibition organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, January 16 - May 8, 2022. 2022 HOLLIS number: 99156361672603941
