Defiant Concession (SOLD)

“Defiant Concession”

The course of the Red River Wars and the unexpected defeat at Adobe Walls only defined what Quahadi Comanche Chief Quanah Parker already knew. The great herds of buffalo have been annihilated, his people were starving, and there was no longer a way to sustain the existence that this First Nation, nomadic tribe had maintained across the great Llano Escatada for hundreds of years.

So in May of 1875, he defiantly conceded to move himself and his people, the final holdout of the Kiowas, Apaches and Comanches, to the reservation at Ft. Sill, Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.

Storytelling is a passion of mine and this painting tells a story with symbolic, native American symbols and other techniques.  The painting here, titled “Defiant Concession” shows Chief Quanah Parker confronting the viewer with a bison skull, evidence of the demise of his people’s life source, forcing them to concede to the reservation at Fort Sill.

The colors and active brushwork convey the dramatic situation. The image of the scissortail flycatcher symbolized change and cutting ties with the past to the Plains Indians.

The spinning, off-kilter, modified scissortails in the lower left of the painting depict chaos spinning out of control.  Each bird has a broken wing, symbolic of brokenness and wounding.

The diamonds within a diamond with a dot in the center, wafting through represent the eye of the medicine man and symbolizes foretelling of the future.  The opposing arrows within the orange horizontal band signify war.

This painting is 48” x 48” and is the beginning piece of a series.  I have used handwritten, 1890s, historic Texas land grant deed documents glued to the canvas as a base on which to paint. These deeds conveyed land formerly owned and controlled by the Comanches, so there is a physical tie of incorporating a relic from the historical time period.  In addition to the acrylic paint medium on the historic documents, I have incorporated other paper collages, mainly torn from magazines.  This collage process again is an attempt to use scavenged, contemporary materials to create juxtaposed beauty and as an artistic expression of the clash of cultures and of redemption, a reoccurring theme in my work and in my life.