Local Art Seen: Long Night of the Floating Shell Features Paintings by Jonathan Thunder and Zamara Cuyun

"Midwife I"--acrylic on canvas, Zamara Cuyun

Last Friday evening was an artist reception and talk at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center featuring work by Guatemalan artist Zamara Cuyun and our local Native painter Jonathan Thunder. Thunder has recently come into his stride in recent years, producing impressive image-tales, weaving symbols and images into stories, in the manner of oral histories, except they emerge from somewhere else along the mists of time.

What was striking was seeing how naturally his painting style matched Cuyun's "dark-to-light" method of painting so as to produce images that seem to almost leap from the canvas. Here are some of the works I saw this past weekend. The images are quite striking, and I am certain the stories they tell are as well.

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"King Bear"--Jonathan Thunder, acrylic on canvas.

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"Awakening"--Zamara Cuyun, acrylic on canvas.

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"Tandem" by Thunder. These two were displayed in tandem.

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"Origien" by Cuyun. Acrylic on canvas.

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"La Siembra (The Sowing)"--Zamara Cuyun

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Jonathan Thunder

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Detail from another Thunder piece.

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Jonathan Thunder discusses his work with patron of the show.

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"Le Semilla (The Seed)" by Cuyun

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"Hunter S. Thompson"--Giclee on canvas by Jonathan Thunder.

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BONUS TRACK
This was an announcement on Facebook about an event in Tulsa:

Tonight, Wed. May 29, at the Cain's Ballroom, Kevin Odegard will play the same Martin guitar he used on "Tangled Up In Blue" on Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks (1975). Kevin will perform the song with our house band, The Oklahoma Specials, and musician/journalist Jeff Slate HQ as part of our program. Following that performance, Kevin will donate this storied instrument to Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center from the Cain's stage. Join us for an amazing evening of music, conversation, and maybe even some history-making.

See: Inside the Studio: Still More Blood and Tracks as Paul Metsa's Wall of Power Features MN Music Luminaries

Meantime... art goes on all around you. Engage it.