Artist: Ishi Glinsky (b. Arizona, 1982)
Title: Trip to Topawa, 2022
Media: Acrylic ink, oil stick and matte medium on canvas Museum purchase with funds provided by Beth Rudin DeWoody and an anonymous donor
On long-term loan from the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara 2023.006.001
Working in a variety of media, which includes painting, drawing and sculpture, artist Ishi Glinsky investigates the traditional practices of his tribe, the Tohono O’odham Nation, as well as other North American First Nations to create contemporary homages to sacred events and customs. These investigations often consist of a close study of the history and significance of a craft tradition, the committed apprenticeship of its technique, and its assimilation or transformation within Glinsky’s artistic practice. In Trip to Topawa, Glinsky both studies and celebrates Tohono O’odham basketry by coiling and spiraling together indigenous knowledge to consider the collision of different worlds.
The work begins with two portraits of Tohono O'odham basket weavings sitting next to one another. In the
words of the artist:
“I am considering how each of these baskets are made and the indigenous
knowledge and understanding of what is happening all around us, that allows for these creations to come into existence. From my perspective I see an action of spiraling outward, formed at the core of these two original baskets. One basket executed using rebar wire contrasted with the other work rendered from bear grass, devils claw, and yucca. These designs have momentum, seemingly reflecting
what is happening in the cosmos above. When uniting each of these works on one canvas I envision a clashing of galaxies, acted out in weavings of wire and desert harvested materials, then, skewed, and explored on this canvas.”
-Ishi Glinsky, 2023