Touch the Clouds... Take 1

Chris Pappan, artist

Cultural affiliations: Osage, Kaw, Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux

born 1971

Touch the Clouds... Take 1, November, 2010

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: pencil; wove paper

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 33.6 x 20.7 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 13 1/4 x 8 1/8 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 33.6 x 20.7 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 13 1/4 x 8 1/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2012.0012

Not on display

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Past Presence

In Touch the Clouds… Take 1, artist Chris Pappan engages with the 19th-century practice of Plains Indian ledger art, a narrative art form made with pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings on pages of colonial settlers’ old accounting books. In this drawing on 1870s ledger paper, Pappan references a historical photograph of a Native American man holding a rifle. Pappan depicts the man seated between two mirrored halves of his own image, suggesting psychological fragmentation. The optical distortion in this work calls attention to the distorted historical lens through which dominant culture has viewed Native Americans and through which Native Americans have viewed themselves.