Terran Last Gun, Saakwaynaamah’kaa (Last Gun), (b. 1989, Browning, Montana) is a Piikani (Blackfeet) citizen and visual artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Piikani of Montana are one of four nations that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy and are collectively referred to as the Niitsitapi (Real People). 

 

"My work explores the relationships between color, shape, land, cosmos, cultural narratives, and experiences. These are the building blocks of my art practice and connect me to my Piikani heritage. As a Piikani visual artist I am deeply influenced by Blackfoot painted lodges, hides, war shirts, and Blackfoot archaeology throughout Montana and Alberta. The ancient human narrative of North America, and more specifically of the Blackfoot People, has always fascinated me. Other sources of inspiration include ancient sites, petroglyphs, pictographs, pictorial imagery, rocks, rock formations, and glacial erratics. 

 

Often employing geometric aesthetics, my work contributes to the ancient yet a continuum Indigenous North American narrative. It bridges the ancient to the contemporary, all while creating visual color stimulation in my varied approaches to creating art: printmaking, painting, photography, and ledger drawing that utilizes antique ledger sheets and documents. I am revealing fragments of time, history, and Indigenous abstraction—an art form that has continued for thousands of years. My work is bold, vivid, and has abstract minimalist qualities that are potent in meaning, content, and place."

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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.

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Last Gun is represented by Hecho a Mano in Santa Fe, NM, Gallery Hózhó in Albuquerque, NM, K Art in Buffalo, NY, and McClain Gallery in Houston, TX.

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