Wanderlust

“You must make your own map.”  

The final line in Joy Harjo’s poem “A Map to the Next World” strikes a nerve with those of us who always find ourselves searching. Whether what you’re looking for is an opportunity, an exit, a sense of purpose, or something else, there’s no preordained path to follow. Everyone cuts their own messy course, and there’s rarely anything path-like or linear about it. Artists tend to dwell on their journeys a lot, or maybe, just by the expressive nature of their work, their soul-searching and cultural explorations simply are more visible.

Sterlin Harjo Photo by Shane Brown

In The Soul is a Wanderer—an exhibit title that originates from the same Harjo poem—thirteen artists have embarked on their own sorts of maps, focusing on concepts like creation, representation (and misrepresentation), interconnectedness, uprising, and home. Or, as the exhibit text says, “The artists draw inspiration from the poem’s call to remember the past as we journey beyond the present by unearthing complex histories and imaging alternate routes toward emancipatory futures of our making.”  

The Soul is a Wanderer is the newest iteration of Oklahoma Contemporary’s biennial ArtNow exhibition, which spotlights work from Oklahoma artists. Lindsay Aveilhé, director of the Gardiner Gallery of Art at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, is this year’s guest curator.  
 
Next to the gallery entry, visitors will see Sterlin Harjo’s video of Joy Harjo reading the A Map to the Next World—and no, the two are not related. The ArtNow 2023 Focus Awardee, Sterlin Harjo is best known as the creator and showrunner of the acclaimed Reservation Dogs series on FX/Hulu, although he’s been making TV shows and films for around two decades.  

"Ferrous Form/Unform" by Molly Kaderka. Photo courtesy Lexi Hoebing

The next thing most likely to catch the viewer’s eye is the massive mixed media installation, Ferrous Form/Unform by Molly Kaderka. Taking up most of two gallery walls, these zygote/nebula-looking pieces made from a combination of drawings, painting, and handmade marbled paper are installed directly on the wall. From a distance, it looks like a beautiful alien moss has gone wild in the gallery, but upon closer inspection, the surface is more like stone. According to the artist statement, “the marbled paper evokes the texture of rocks and the cellular forms of living organisms—both made from the same atoms born in a star long ago.” 

"Whose Kicks?" by Yatika Starr Fields. Photo by Megan Rossman

Yatika Starr Fields, a Tulsa Fellowship artist whose murals and large-scale paintings can be seen all over the state, has two pieces in this show that call attention to the history of Route 66. A five-minute video, Go West Young Man, looks at some of the Indigenous stereotypes perpetuated in signage and other roadside marketing, while an Ed Ruscha-influenced painting Whose Kicks? pointedly responds to the famous Mother-Road-trip ditty. Fields used crushed river mussel shells from Oklahoma waterways to create the white paint in this piece, which contrasts brightly with the black tar-like paint representing the paved road.   

"Soil Objects" and "Soil Studies" by Ruth Borum-Loveland

Visitors also will find a large corner of the space dedicated to Ruth Borum-Loveland’s Soil Studies. The artist collects clay deposits from local areas and places she visits and turns them into pigments. Combining the clay with egg yolk, she creates paint. Her collection of pieces in this exhibit—intersecting lines of soil on paper—are both an artistic expression and a documentation of the land itself. A table next to her paintings displays an impressive collection of rocks, petrified wood, and other natural pieces she’s found outdoors.   

Visitors can learn more about Harjo, Kaderka, Fields, Borum-Loveland and the nine other artists in person from now through January 15, 2024. Admission to the galleries is always free.

Written By

Megan Rossman

Megan Rossman is Oklahoma Today's photography editor.