Irene Tsosie Sand Painting, "This Is in Hummed Valley"

Irene Tsosie Sand Painting, "This Is in Hummed Valley"

$145.00
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Irene Tsosie Sand Painting, "This Is in Hummed Valley"
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KOBK.26.ART.001
Irene Tsosie Sand Painting, "This Is in Hummed Valley"
$145.00

Specifications

United States, 1970s
Dine (Navajo) maker, Irene Tsosie
Coloured sand fixed to board
10.5 x 10.5 cm
Inscribed verso: "This is in Hummed Valley, by I. Tsosie"

Every KOBK object is one of one and carries its age honestly. Expect marks, wear and patina as part of the piece; any specific fault is noted above. Where an object is photographed on a stand, the stand is included.

Notes

The reverse is what fixes it in place: "This is in Hummed Valley, by I. Tsosie." Whether Hummed Valley is a real place, a remembered one, or simply the title the artist settled on, it ties the picture to a specific eye.

The deeper interest is what this kind of object is. Sandpainting comes out of Dine healing ceremony, where images were built in dry pigment on the ground and then deliberately destroyed within the day, their power spent in the rite. Painting that was never meant to last. The permanent, glued-to-board version like this one came later, partly for sale and partly to keep a tradition visible outside ceremony, and it carries a quiet contradiction: a survival of an art form whose whole point was to disappear. Exactly the kind of thing this store is interested in.

What makes this one good is restraint. Three mesas, a low desert line, just enough sky, and no urge to push harder.