Name/Title
Dreaming of the Supper Break (Grease Fire!)Entry/Object ID
2020.06Description
Buffalo-headed nude woman in graphite sitting in lawn chair with burning trailer and blue circle in background on top of signed ledger paper and including strip of map and buffalo stamp in lower quadrant of work surface.Artwork Details
Medium
Mixed media on ledger paperContext
American Indian artist Chris Pappan describes his aesthetic as “Lowbrow Native”, taking its references from contemporary influences such as Heavy Metal and Juxtapoz magazines, the 1970s Lowbrow movement coming out of Los Angeles, which combined underground comics, punk, and hot rod culture, and then infuses these images with the stylings of 19th century European portraiture and photography. Pappan also reinvigorates the Native American tradition of ledger art, which started in the 1860s, saw a resurgence in the 1960s, and is a reference to the type of paper that Plains Indians used for their own drawings: accounting paper from ledger books of the late 19th century. Dreaming of a Supper Break (Grease Fire!) is a beautiful example of these mixed references. The Indian Fry Bread sign recalls a complicated history in Native American food culture: linking the bread that the Navajo people created with the rations they were given from the American government during the group’s painful relocation into the Southwest’s desert areas. The lack of rich soil in the Southwest caused these groups to resort to making what became known as “Indian fry bread,” which has been linked to the largest contemporary killer of Native Americans today: diabetes and obesity. The buffalo-headed woman in the foreground epitomizes the White Buffalo Calf Woman, a sacred goddess of the Lakota region, who was said to have emerged specifically during times of famine.Acquisition
Accession
2020.06Source or Donor
Pappan, ChrisAcquisition Method
PurchaseCredit Line
Courtesy of the artistInscription/Signature/Marks
Type
InscriptionLocation
Bottom left in graphiteTranscription
Artist initials and "Feb 20"Material/Technique
graphiteType
InscriptionLocation
Running top left to middleTranscription
Artwork title "Dreaming of the Summer Break (Grease Fire!)Material/Technique
graphiteType
InscriptionLocation
Middle right verticalTranscription
21st Century Ledger Drawing #180Material/Technique
graphiteLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Primary Object Term
ArtworkNomenclature Class
ArtNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsLOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Native peoples, Buffaloes, Female figure drawings