ARTISTS
Jeneen Frei Njootli: How imminent is this: love and prayers
FIERMAN presents how imminent is this: love n prayers, a solo exhibition by Jeneen Frei Njootli. It is the artist鈥檚 second solo show with the gallery, following NDN BURN in 2018. Frei Njootli is a member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation living on sovereign land in the northern Yukon Territory of Canada. The exhibition features new sculptures, primarily wall-based, comprised of synthetic tarps, animal hides, cardboard and other packing supplies, and ricrac and beaded cultural signifiers such as earrings.
Frei Njootli鈥檚 sculptures are rooted in the Indigenous material world, evincing the meanness and ubiquity of industrial detritus alongside the spiritual and emotional potency of the aesthetics of culturally significant regalia. Floral imagery recurs, both in commercially sourced colorful ribbons and in flowers rendered by hand with a staple gun, mimicking beadwork. Frei Njootli imbues the assemblages with an urgency both visceral and political, as delicacy abuts roughness and personal experience cannot untangle from considerations of power, sovereignty, and colonial violence. The informal and poetic titling of the exhibition and works reify the quotidian directness of their making, as narrative ploys and specific personal references serve as both odes and calls to action.
FIERMAN presents how imminent is this: love n prayers, a solo exhibition by Jeneen Frei Njootli. It is the artist鈥檚 second solo show with the gallery, following NDN BURN in 2018. Frei Njootli is a member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation living on sovereign land in the northern Yukon Territory of Canada. The exhibition features new sculptures, primarily wall-based, comprised of synthetic tarps, animal hides, cardboard and other packing supplies, and ricrac and beaded cultural signifiers such as earrings.
Frei Njootli鈥檚 sculptures are rooted in the Indigenous material world, evincing the meanness and ubiquity of industrial detritus alongside the spiritual and emotional potency of the aesthetics of culturally significant regalia. Floral imagery recurs, both in commercially sourced colorful ribbons and in flowers rendered by hand with a staple gun, mimicking beadwork. Frei Njootli imbues the assemblages with an urgency both visceral and political, as delicacy abuts roughness and personal experience cannot untangle from considerations of power, sovereignty, and colonial violence. The informal and poetic titling of the exhibition and works reify the quotidian directness of their making, as narrative ploys and specific personal references serve as both odes and calls to action.
Artists on show
