I am fortunate to have recently been gifted a beautiful serigraph hand-made by Robert Orduno of one of his famous pieces, Wohpe & Whitecrow. Wohpe is the Lakota Sioux Native American Goddess of Peace. She is one of the major spirits in Lakota mythology, associated with creating harmony. White crow symbolizes healing, purification and transitions.
Orduno describes this piece: “Wohpe is the La Quota [Lakota] Sioux Goddess of Peace assuring harmony of life on earth. Sometimes called “Falling Star” which may implicate her as the origin of the concept of granting wishes on falling stars. The tree of life is in the background. In my Sioux-Goddess visionary series about the Wohpe legend, I am fascinated with the similarity of goddess-centered, heroic and legendary women in all cultures. I’ve been very attracted to these goddesses due to my belief that the Mother Creator is a universal concept. The women in my legendary goddess series are sacred. Impasto surface textures and vibrant color and motion is throughout.”
“When the ancient Ones talk to me, I listen.”
Robert Orduno was a Santa Fe-based painter originally from Los Angeles. His Gabrieleno and Kiowa-Apache heritage, mixed with a bit of Spanish, gifted him with an intimate connection to sacred, ceremonial and mystic themes. Orduno was born in 1933 on a small farm in California and went to the Los Angeles School of Design. After several years as a graphic designer, he turned to painting, living in Montana and eventually settling in Santa Fe. The Saatchi Art Gallery in London says, “The essence of his paintings are of Pueblo Indian and plains Indian cosmology which is absorbed into the vast territory of collective mythology where the images integrate, surface and redefine themselves in ancient symbolism, petroglyphic visions, the rhythmic essence of ceremony, and in the magnetic power of dance.”
Orduno said he was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin’s visceral colors, Pablo Picasso’s fantasies, and Jackson Pollack’s work. “I relish the abstract, but like [Willem] De Kooning, I am compelled to go back to the figurative,” he says.
Orduno’s said one of his favorite Pueblo dances is the Southwest Pueblo Tablet Dance. In this interpretation, he said he was inspired to depict the dancer in a contemporary representational form true to his technique. AskArt, an online artist database describes Orduno’s works: “[He] explores the conceptual precepts of the abstract expressionists – the intrinsic conviction that the canvas serves as an arena for a dance of spontaneity, and the act of painting is one of self-creation and revelation – his images evolve beyond representative form. They emerge from the original source into the figurative, energized by a spectacular and high-aesthetic mastery of color.”
“Jingle Dress Dancer” depicts a traditional Powwow dancer, with jingle bells sown to her dress. The bright colors and flowing brush strokes, make the dancer appear to be moving, a trademark style of Orduno.
The Apache Crown Dance or Ga’an Dance is performed by dancers who embody the Mountain Spirits (the Ga’an). This ceremonial dance connects the spiritual world with the physical earth in order to bless, heal, and protect the community. Five dancers wear elaborate headdresses or crowns and masks, all with symbolic significance. Outsiders called them “devil dancers” but Native Americans acknowledge the ceremony as sacred. This piece shows movement in the abstract.
M.E. Chevreul, a French chemist who formalized color theory in the 1800s inspired this work. Color theory is the art and science explaining how we physically and psychologically react to color and how colors mix, match and contrast. Orduno’s rendition of the color wheel challenges you to feel and think about color in the abstract.
This piece was inspired by the Princess and the Frog fable, or as Orduno explains it, the Goddess and the Frog. In the classic tale, a frog asks a beautiful woman to kiss him to break a spell and turn him back into a man. In this deep-colored interpretation, Orduno said he was inspired by a twist of the fable where he, as an elder, would receive an invitation by a maiden frog. This painting, again of transformation, shows dynamic color and a sense of the eternal, all trademarks of his work.
“I believe art is both metaphysical and plastic. An artist must create new life and invent new experiences. Within the four borders of a canvas is an architecture that breathes a life of its own, not an attempt to recreate reality. We are always searching, looking for what is on the next horizon, continually creating our own mythologies. When I stand back from something I have been deeply involved in creating, I make new discoveries about myself. If you listen to your heart, it will tell you what you need to know and what will be.” – Robert Orduno
While writing this piece, I found out from his daughter that Orduno left this earth. He was 90. I am honored to have been introduced to his art.
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