Clovice Holt & Jason Blue Lake Medicine Eagle Martinez

Feb. 20th - March 21st 2021

This show brings together recent works by both artists with themes of mythology and contemporary spirituality. The artist’s material practices are different from each other, which reflects their embrace of variety when seeking the divine. Jason’s paintings fill the walls – within them, a world of referenced and invented figures share space. Symbols from Wicca, Buddhism, and Jason’s own Native American upbringing might mingle with the Looney Tunes. Overt depictions of life and death merge to create a narrative that while the afterlife is unknown, there are endless ways to imagine it. 

Hanging upside down in the center of the room is a human-sized depiction of Lucifer. Clovice Holt originally modeled this version of Lucifer in virtual reality, brought to us IRL by way of 3D printing. Clovice’s Lucifer is not the usual. While familiarly red and horned – this version boasts a childlike drawn sad-face, intensely round buttcheeks, and a gravity-defying penis pointing straight-up, despite Lucifer hanging upside down. Clovice’s take on this fallen heavenly-being is equal parts humorous, cute, and sexualized. 

Both of these artists embrace spirituality in ways that aren’t traditionally sacred – instead, they omnivorously pull from both their own pasts and the wide reach of technology to invent a spirituality all their own. 

Artist statements:

Clovice Holt:

Lucifer, fallen angel, the morning star, God’s son–posited as haughty, power hungry and glory driven is to me, not believable. If anything, Satan cried the day he left heaven. Caressing his father’s cheek, blowing a kiss, and breathily proclaiming, “I gotta go daddy...”, running out the palace doors, closing one by one as he looks out onto the universe, atop a silken cloud. Exodus rather than exile.

Queering the story of Lucifer is an exercise in finding alternative meaning. The faster and more accessible technology develops, such as the virtual reality headset in which this sculpture was created, the more absurd the myths and legends of the bible become.  Positioning God, not Lucifer, as the onus of failure, I relate to an allegory of a son deciding to venture off into the world, leaving his home to journey on his own adventures.

Jason Blue Lake Medicine Eagle Martinez:

My works are about visualizing the life force spirit. I am spirit and they exist because I exist. My ego says I am an artist, shaman, and educator. Action and reaction may prove this so. I am on an endless search and spirit process of visually interpreting the unseen forces around us. I want each piece I construct to tell a story of awakening, healing, and the vitality of the life processes through what I call neo-mythology. My works are loaded with references to spiritual life, Pop culture and Native American Pueblo culture. The works convey a fluidity between the traditional mythology of my native tradition and that of modern spiritual and conspiracy theory; their coexistence is an expression of the way in which stories can both heal and build identity.