Roberts Projects is pleased to present False Stars, an exhibition of new work by Wendy Red Star that takes the Star Quilt through a series of material transformations. Named for the scientific phenomenon whereby a celestial formation is wrongly assumed to be a full-fledged star, the exhibition brings together mirrored installations and works on paper that show the enduring symbolic resonance of the stars.
Red Star grew up with Star Quilts on the Apsáalooke reservation in Montana, encountering them at clan gatherings, powwows, graduations and giveaways. Alongside Pendleton blankets, they were among the most prized gifts she remembers being exchanged; an elaborate quilt made entirely in satin carried particular status. The Star Quilt has its own history of transformation. In the late nineteenth century, Native women across the Plains learned Euro-American sewing and quilting techniques through missionaries, churches and government assimilation programs. Plains women took up these introduced methods and made them their own. Star Quilts became embedded within existing practices of honoring and exchange and developed distinctive approaches to color and composition. A form introduced within a colonial project became, through the hands of Native women, something culturally specific and deeply valued within their communities.
The artist also came to recognize a visual language in the Native Star Quilts around her: diamonds cut from solid-colored fabrics rather than prints, with the complexity of the composition generated through arrangements of saturated color. False Stars begins with this relationship between the diamond and color, then asks how little of the quilt is necessary for the star to remain. Working with earth pigments, mirrors, acrylic beads, watercolor, gouache and paper, Red Star retains the quilt’s underlying structure—diamond, color, repetition, assembly—while largely dispensing with the materials of quilting itself.
Opening Reception:
Saturday, November 7, 5 - 7pm
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm