Artist Reception for Melanie Yazzie

Friday, August 16, 2019

1 pm to 3 pm

Featuring new works on canvas, paper and sculpture

Glenn Green Galleries + Sculpture Garden

136 Tesuque Village Road

Santa Fe (Tesuque), New Mexico 87506

(505) 820-0008

glenngreen.com

Melanie Yazzie is a printmaker, painter, and sculptor. Melanie Yazzie’s work draws upon her rich Diné (Navajo) cultural heritage. She is of the Salt and Bitter Water clans. Her work follows the Diné dictum “walk in beauty” literally, creating beauty and harmony. As an artist, she works to serve as an agent of change by encouraging others to learn about social, cultural, and political phenomena shaping the contemporary lives of Native peoples in the United States and beyond. Her work incorporates both personal experiences as well as the events and symbols from Diné culture. She is a Professor, Head of Printmaking at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "My work is culturally based in my heritage of being a Dine (Navajo) person. The works stem from the thought and belief that what we create must have beauty and harmony from within ourselves, from above, below, in front, behind and from our core. We are taught to seek out beauty and create it with our thoughts and prayers. I feel that when I am making my work, be it a print, a painting or a sculpture, I begin by centering myself and thinking it all out in a “good way”, which is how I was taught from an early age.The work then takes on a life of its own and is centered around my personal experience or a life event. It seeks to tell a story about something real or something imagined, or a dream but it is a tool to get at a bigger story I have to tell.I do all of this to educate and to connect with communities. I am a bridge between my community and the outside world. I can only tell my truth and I always say that I am one voice from my community, and I can only represent myself, my experience. I cannot speak for all indigenous people. I ask them to make the effort and take time to know their communities and the people in them. At times they fail to realize that they are the indigenous people of their place.”  —Melanie A. Yazzie Her work is in the collections of The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Denver Art Museum, University of Alberta, Print Collection, Edmonton, Canada, New Mexico Museum of Art Santa Fe, Spencer Museum, Kansas City, MO, Arizona State University Museum, Tempe, AZ., The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, NM