Raven Halfmoon’s Monumental Ceramics Counter Stereotypes of Indigenous Culture
By Claire Voon - Artsy
On a recent phone call, the artist Raven Halfmoon was exhilarated to share something she had just read: “Did you know that the Easter Island heads have full bodies?” Archaeologists started digging, she continued, and they’ve found that the legendary monolithic sculptures have torsos underground. For Halfmoon, a sculptor who relishes the boundless possibilities of clay, the simple thrill lay in the realization that these ancient stone statues are bigger than we’d previously believed. “To think about how people made these is what absolutely blows my mind,” she said. “How monumental they are just fascinates me.”
Halfmoon’s work delivers its own magnitudes in terms of physical size, but also presence and personal history. Long inspired by the colossal Easter Island mo’ai and Olmec heads, she sculpts hefty, prodigious figures that represent and honor her Native American heritage on her own terms. Wall-mounted heads of fierce wolves and decorated buffalo, and larger-than-life portrayals of majestic, mighty women, animate stories from her Caddo culture and reference the imagery of Caddo artifacts. Shaped from dark clay with rough, irregular surfaces, they thrum with energy and demand visibility. “I feel like my pieces are monumental reflections of identity,” Halfmoon said. “Not only is it my understanding and interpretation of culture, it’s a fight to maintain a place for it in today’s world.”