Opens Friday 2/17
The evolution of Frank Big Bear's artistic practice over the past 25 years has been an exciting journey of both consistency and change. His current offering of five modestly scaled paintings and about 50 small drawings does not disappoint. Portraits all, of skeletal warriors and other figures (creatures), the paintings demonstrate Big Bear's electric palette, but with a cleaner, simplified geometry of form and pattern. His densely worked, square-format drawings are classic Big Bear, but some sport a more somber coloration. Another aesthetic departure is a single work comprising 150 individual collages, each using the same photo portrait of rocker/poet Patti Smith as a platform for his creative musings. Collectively, the offering is a fitting homage to Breckenridge, Minn., native Fritz Scholder (1937-2005), one of the most internationally recognized American Indian artists, who explored death and skull imagery in a 2001 exhibition -- a fitting springboard for Big Bear.
