Renewed Space (2022) by Terran Last Gun

Renewed Space (2022) by Terran Last Gun

Title: Renewed Space (2022)

By: Terran Last Gun
Media: Ink and colored pencil on antique “City Treasurer, Butte, Montana Journal” ledger sheet (c. 1900); Watermark: National Record

Original size: 17 7/16 x 15 9/16 inches


I chose to use primary colors for most of the drawing, and a light peachy orange for the bottom to create color harmony. My work often reflects the visual iconography of Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) painted lodges, and more specifically, painted lodges documented within Piikani (Blackfeet) territory of Montana. Most of my focus has been on the geometric symbols from the top and bottom tiers that represent the cosmos and land. The trapezoid is a strong and alluring shape that I’ve been working with, and the ledger paper I used is from Butte, Montana. I think of my work as Piikani modernism and a form of continuum. As Niitsitapi people who have been in Montana and Alberta for well over ten thousand years, my work pulls from ancient symbols, knowledge and history of North America, as well as ponders the next ten thousand years and what future symbols will look like. I believe my work does what this project title entails, and that is centering Indigenous knowledge, but in the form of visual aesthetics.