Mazinibii’igewininiwag: Two Woodland Artists Opening Reception

AICHO Galleries has brought together Gordon Coons (Lac Courte Oreilles) and Steven StandingCloud (Red Lake) for the group art exhibition Mazinibii’igewininiwag: Two Woodland Artists.

The exhibition remains on display through Dec. 29. The gallery is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Explore the power of connection to nature, culture, spirituality and Ojibwe realities (past and present) through Coons and StandingCloud’s strikingly bold and meaningful Anishinaabeg Woodland symbolic imagery.

Gordon Coons is an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and Ottawa and Potawatomi from Michigan from his mother’s side. He is a self-taught painter, printmaker and fumage artist. He paints in the Ojibwa Woodland style and creates smoke art by burning cedar. Coons draws inspiration from his Anishinaabe heritage and his bright color palette comes from the natural Great Lakes region. “I also enjoy incorporating playfulness in my images, telling stories of relationships between Western and Native cultures, and the connection we have to our shared historical events,” he said.

Steven StandingCloud is a digital artist and an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. The artist believes he has been offered a gift to create art to drive a contemporary vision of Anishinaabe culture needed to express the pride and tradition of its people. His work expresses and represents Anishinaabe and Great Lakes artforms and conveys the cultural beauty foundational of Anishinaabe culture. The artist has been designing contemporary visions of cultural pride and tradition since 1980 and using computer graphics since 2015 to create his images.