The artist came up in the 1970s New York art scene, but relocated to his tribal land in Oklahoma in 1981, where he has worked since. In “Honor Song,” Heap of Birds continues to tackle the complexities of being an Indigenous artist today, reckoning with the intergenerational trauma that his community has endured while also trying to maintain traditional Native values in a world where it can often be challenging to do so. “The primary subjects of his work range from references to ceremony and sacred landscapes, to meditations on unresolved historical narratives,” says Barrera. ”The totality of the artwork reveals a through-line: Heap of Birds harnesses color, text, place, and the language of abstraction to reconstruct histories, engage with the treatment of global Indigenous communities, and advance the rights of, and for, people and land.”
Heap of BirdsPhotograph by Kendra Cremin
All of the works in “Honor Song”—including paintings, prints, drawing, sculptures, and more—are organized into four thematic sections: Reckoning, Resilience, Renewal, and Rhythm. In many of his works, Heap of Birds also uses multiples of four. (The number holds a special ceremonial significance in Cheyenne culture; a council of 44 chiefs is a key aspect of the Cheyenne self-governance system, for example.) One sees this reference in his 2022 work Was Told Twelve Times, where 12 multicolor quadrants repeatedly read “Do Not Dance For Pay”—a clear statement on the commodification of traditional powwow dancing.
