Terran Last Gun

Terran Last Gun, Saakwaynaamah’kaa (Last Gun) (b. 1989, Browning, MT) is a contemporary visual artist and citizen of the Piikani (Blackfeet) of Montana—Piikani is one of four nations that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy. Last Gun’s work focuses on color and shape exploration, and the visual documentation of nature, cosmos, narratives, and recollections. Often employing geometric aesthetics, he contributes to an ancient yet continuum Indigenous North American narrative through various media, including ledger drawing, printmaking, painting, and photography. Last Gun received his BFA in Museum Studies and AFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2016. He has received awards from the First Peoples Fund 2020 Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship, Santa Fe Art Institute 2018 Story Maps Fellowship, and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture 2016 Goodman Fellowship. Last Gun was named one of the 2022 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now in Southwest Contemporary (formerly THE Magazine). He currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

-Terran Last Gun, 2020

LINK TO CV

When approaching new work there are a number of steps I find important, and those are paper choice (size; quantity), compositional choice (shape), and color choice (color theory; color relativity; RYB color wheel; harmonious color schemes). The new works I created for Gallery Hózhó are done with colored pencils and archival ink on antique ledger sheets that are all from various Montana locations, which is my home state and traditional Piikani (Blackfeet) territory. I’ve been working with the idea of how color and shape can provide energy and create mood. These works are part of that pursuit and continue to push color relationships using low and high intensity color schemes. There is a term I came across recently and it really resonated with me and my work, and that was retro futurism. I feel my work pulls from the ancient and future, all while being aware of the present. Through my work I am adding to and reestablishing the Piikani experience in North America. I’ve often looked at my work as being geometric abstraction, but yet it is still potent in meaning and symbiology. Working with ledger sheets further adds to the concept of time, history, and place—it’s a beautiful and unique piece of history given new life and meaning.