Portrait of Coyote and the Anguish of Mortality
Mixed Media, pastel, pencil, conte, charcoal, on Stonehenge Paper, 30” x 22”, 2022
Project Type: Portfolio
Renewal: The Belief in Hope
They say that to grow a garden is to believe in hope; you must believe that the seeds you put into the earth will grow. The beauty of this simple act has captivated me since I watched my dad garden when I was very small. He would tie string so tight for the beans to climb that when the winds of Oklahoma would blow, the string would sing. It was as if the garden was a symphony in and of itself with the strings and the sound of the corn stalks rattling. The buzz of the bees as they made their way from flower-to-flower fat with the bright yellow pollen and the crackling hum of the cicadas in the late Oklahoma August months. I can close my eyes and am transported back.
“Renewal: The Belief in Hope”
Unique Cast Bronze with Patina and Birch Panel
40” x 30” x 8”
Sold
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
- The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
Bloodline: Portrait of Community
Bloodline: Portrait of Community
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Cedar and Steel, 20” x 84” x 10”, 2022
There is the family you are born into and then there is the family you make. They are the friends you made in school, the neighbor’s you live by and the colleagues at your work. You watch the children grow and tell the secret wishes you have for them. You have meals together; you share in the joy the ups and the down and you bring them love and kindness when they have lost a loved one. We build an extended family that grows year by year and that makes for a community that is full of rich diversity, compassion, and love.
My mother told me of the “Stick People,” a Delaware/Lenape story; they would run through the night calling your name, beckoning you to follow; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. I am reimagining that story, now a story of family and friends. My family’s history—a complicated narrative of loss, erasure, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks; I now call them “Cigar Figures.” Their faces are of the ancestors, family, and friends, echoing the form of a cameo or silhouette painting, capturing family images. They walk upon a cedar log from my land in Oklahoma; I have heard cedar called mother. She carries the people on her back, and we can see the paths made on her bark by the tiny animals that lived their lives below her skin. All these lives lived together as a community, listening to the secret dreams of our children whispered to the wind, growing year by year, full of life, compassion, and love, above, below, and here.
When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.
Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
- Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Bloodline: Building Community
Wind Rider
Wind Rider
Unique Cast Bronze and Patina, 17” x 48” x 8.5” , 2022
My children and I love to pick up sticks that look like birds or dragons. In the story I made up with my daughter there is a young girl who is playing outside when she hears a rustling in the bushes next to her, as she looks closer, she sees this beautiful dragon emerge with a long body and tail. They both stare at each other in amazement and then the dragon says, “Can you see me? Only MY Rider can truly see me.” The young girl tells the dragon “I can see you”, and then they rode through the skies for the rest of the afternoon. When her mom looked out the window, she only saw her playing with a stick, but for the girl, she saw her dragon, and she was the Wind Rider.
As we get older, I think we forget to see the dragons that are hiding in the sticks and that we can fly through the skies with our arms outstretched, feeling the wind pass beneath us. I try to remember, never stop looking for the magic, and that our dreams can come true.
Sold
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
- On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Wind Rider
Red
As children, we make and wear masks to become anything we want or need to be. We can do anything in them, from being a superhero to a bird in flight. As adults, the layers and meaning of masks deepen and grow. They are a way to represent the different personas that we need or desire to be in life. Masks are an identity that one can live through or hide behind.
RED
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
36″ x 24″
2, 4, and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
In the Collection of:
- Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
- C. N. Gorman Museum, Davis, California
- Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri
Exhibition History
- The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
- On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
- Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
- Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis
(January 9-March 16, 2018)
Her Story
“Her Story”
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Birch Panel, 12” Round
In each of us, there is a story that only we can tell. It is full of beauty, sadness, laughter, love, tears, and joy. Take the time to breathe in the journey we each are on.
SOLD
For inquiries, please contact:
7040 E. Main Street | Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 | 480.941.8500 | www.BonnerDavid.com
Vortex
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
VORTEX
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1-5 edition Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Currently on view in Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
With Wings
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
With Wings
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1-5 edition Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Currently on view in Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Ghost of the Dead
In a strategic trickster twist, I feature children, often masked, as a tool to bring the viewer into my work. Masks are multi-layered. They are a mechanism to hide or obscure our true intentions, acting as a wall between us and the world. Masks are also agents of transformation, powerful and sometimes dangerous.
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
GHOST OF THE DEAD
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1, 2, 3, and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
In the Collection of:
- C. N. Gorman Museum, Davis, California
Exhibition History
- The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
- On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
- Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
- Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis
(January 9-March 16, 2018)
I Am More than Fluff
I Am More than Fluff
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Glass, Brass, and Feathers, 14” x 6” x 6”, 2022
I am more than the view that my people are frozen in time, lost to a romanticized ideal of who the Native Americans were, we are more, and we are still here. I am not this fluff; I am here; I am loud and larger than life.
Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
- The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
- On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
