Ledger Drawing by Terran Last Gun
Ledger Drawing
Terran Last Gun is visual artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Last Gun’s work is engaged with geometric principles; it connects the ancient with the contemporary. Furthermore, he uses several media to assess the form, the colour and the abstraction. “It bridges the ancient to the contemporary, all while creating visual color stimulation in my varied approaches to making art: printmaking, painting, photography, and ledger drawing that utilizes antique ledger sheets and documents.” he suggests in his statement.
The main theme in which he focuses on is his origins, which is the Piikani Nation. “I am revealing fragments of time, history, and Indigenous abstraction—an art form that has continued to survive in North America for thousands of years.” he explains. “My work often employs geometric aesthetics and contributes to an ancient yet continuum Piikani narrative“. Regarding his roots, Terran says that “As a Piikani visual artist, my influences are Blackfoot-painted lodges, hides, and war shirts, as well as Blackfoot archaeology throughout Montana and Alberta, Canada“.
Terran Last Gun
Terran Last Gun holds a BFA in Museum Studies and AFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts. He has received several awards the latest one being the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2024 Biennial Award.
At the beginning, Terran could not identify how he could relate to the art he needed to undertake. “I didn’t know what contemporary art was – what do you mean by that? What is contemporary Indigenous art? It was there that I discovered we don’t just have to paint a warrior, you can do geometric shapes, mixed media installation, digital art, […]” he explained in an interview. However, he knew what he needed to focus on, and he did it wonderfully.
Terran has exhibited his work in several places in the US, including the Newberry Library, Chicago, The 8th Floor, New York and Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio. His work resembles landascape architecture, however Gun’s artifacts are more structured. In this article his ledger drawing work is presented. The result is impressive. Enjoy.
