The Myths

Viewing the work of Wendy Red Star and Kambui Olujimi at the Newark Museum was impressive. They both shared many themes associated with identity, home, personal narrative, and mythology. I gathered that the meaning of their works had a strong focus on identity since each piece had a personal narrative and expressed their artistic ideas.

Mythology helps us understand what is going on in the world, for example, what is the moon, the stars, the sun, etc. it helps us ask questions as to why things exist, or even the bigger question, why we exist. Every culture indeed has myths, but we understand that Native Americans have traditionally had a narrative associated with mythology as a core belief system. According to the National Humanities Center, “at the time of European contact, all but the simplest indigenous cultures in North America had developed coherent religious systems that included cosmologies—creation myths, transmitted orally from one generation to the next, which purported to explain how those societies had come into being.” Based on the tribe, different Native American tribes believed in different things. But they believed in spirit and heroes. Similarly, Greek mythology teaches us that their beliefs or the origin and nature of the world are based on gods, heroes, and rituals of ancient Greeks.

  

With this, we can associate Wendy Red Star’s art to being motivated by her being Native American and focusing on the traditional Native American lifestyle. Because of this, I found her pieces to be unique and from her exhibition, I gather that she’s a person who’s strongly involved within her community. She helps us understand what it’s like to live on an Indian reservation in America, how it shapes their lives, and how traditions are passed down from one generation to the next. All of her pieces have bold colors that are very appealing and thought-provoking. I believe through her art she is able to connect with audiences who have experienced like circumstances through racism, class, and gender.

   

Kambui Olujimi’s exhibit was interesting as well. For me, it was a little challenging to grasp a true understanding of the film, but it surely was creative, mythical, and required me to use my imagination more. His work was different in the sense that most of his colors lacked color but consisted of black and white tones. As he once mentioned, “At times, myth is cannibalistic, consuming past mythologies. At others, it is a translator establishing common ground, spanning cultural and generational divisions…. The mythological has the ability to connect the present, future, and past together in a single chord.”

 

I believe as we look as Kambui Olujimi’s art, we are to connect the past, present, and future together in our own ways. I don’t think we are to necessarily “like” Kambui’s piece but instead find our own narrative in it. What I found was that his pieces almost look like a map to follow; it is geographical in a sense. He mentioned that his art was inspired from being in love with a woman who would often travel all around the world and the stars would be their guide to help them stay connected when they couldn’t communicate via technology. It was a medium that he used to talk over distances. His pieces are translucent and require viewers to interject themselves and bridge the missing pieces together. I love that he leaves it to the observer to make sense of it all which is what fantasy is all about, tapping into our own creative potentials.

Heyrman, Christine. “Native American Religion in Early America.” Native American Religion in Early America, Divining America, TeacherServe®, National Humanities Center, Jan. 2008, nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/natrel.htm