About

Photograph by Samantha Tracy

Biography

Terran Last Gun, Saakwaynaamah’kaa (Last Gun), (b. 1989, Browning, MT) is an enrolled citizen of the Piikani (Blackfeet) of Montana and a visual artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Piikani are one of four nations that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy, collectively called the Niitsitapi (Real People). Born and raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, Last Gun works across media to explore color, form, and abstraction. Drawing inspiration from land, cosmos, cultural narratives, and experiences, Last Gun pushes the boundaries of Piikani abstraction.

He has exhibited at venues including the SITE Santa Fe (Santa Fe, NM), Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, NJ), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Snowmass Village, CO), Glacier Art Museum (Kalispell, MT), Missoula Art Museum (Missoula, MT), Bates Museum of Art (Lewiston, ME), Newberry Library (Chicago, IL), The 8th Floor (New York, NY), Museum of the Plains Indian (Browning, MT), Contemporary at Blue Star (San Antonio, TX), and Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, NM), among others.

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 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2024 Biennial Award, First Peoples Fund 2020 Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship, Santa Fe Art Institute 2018 Story Maps Fellowship, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture 2016 Goodman Aspiring Artist Fellowship. Last Gun was named one of the 2022 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now in Southwest Contemporary.

Artist Statement

Color and shape are the building blocks of my art practice and connect me to my Piikani heritage. 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. 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.

My work often employs geometric aesthetics and contributes to an ancient yet continuum Piikani narrative. 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. 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. My work is bold, vivid, and has abstract minimalist qualities that are potent in meaning, content, and place.

CV

TERRAN LAST GUN

Piikani, USA, B. 1989, Browning, Montana. Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

EDUCATION

2016 BFA, Museum Studies, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2016 AFA, Studio Arts, Institute of American Indians Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2011 A.S., Environmental Science, Blackfeet Community College, Browning, MT

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2026 Terran Last Gun, Virginia Tech, School of Visual Arts, Blacksburg, VA (Upcoming)

2025 Terran Last Gun, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR

2025 Terran Last Gun, Good Luck Gallery, Kalispell, MT

2025 Terran Last Gun, Hecho a Mano, Santa Fe, NM

2025 Terran Last Gun, Chapter NY, New York, NY

2025 Terran Last Gun, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, California

2024 Terran Last Gun, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO

2024 Terran Last Gun: Piikani Visual Sovereignty, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT

2024 Terran Last Gun: The New West, University of Montana Western, Dillon, MT

2023 Terran Last Gun: Small Works, Studio light | space, Tucson, AZ

2023 Terran Last Gun, Saakwaynaamah’kaa (Last Gun), K Art, Buffalo, NY

2023 Terran Last Gun: Future Cosmic Energy, Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT

2023 Terran Last Gun, Hecho Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2021 Terran Last Gun, Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio, TX

2020 Terran Last Gun: Color Play, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Store, Lloyd Kiva New Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2020 Terran Last Gun: Paper Bags, Hecho a Mano, Santa Fe, NM

2019 Terran Last Gun, LOOM Indigenous Art Gallery, Gallup, NM

2019 Terran Last Gun, Hecho a Mano, Santa Fe, NM

2018 Terran Last Gun, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Store, LloydKiva New Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2024 Last Eagle / Last Gun: Modern Recordings of Ancient Blackfoot Symbology, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025 Moving Tradition into the Future, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

2025 12th SITE SANTA FE International: Once Within A Time, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM

2025 Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University,New Brunswick, NJ

2025 Engaging The Future, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, NM

2024 Ugly History of Beautiful Things, Spanish Colonial Arts Society, Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum, Santa Fe, NM

2024 Echoes of the New Frontier, COL Gallery, San Fransisco, CA

2023 Bright Spot, Good Luck Gallery, Kalispell, MT

2023 Exploding Native Inevitable, Bates Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME (Traveling Exhibition)

2023 Surviving the Long Wars: Residues and Rebellions, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL

2023 The House Edge, The 8th Floor, New York, NY

2023 Landscapes of Survivance, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA

2023 Oscar Howe Legacy Across Four Generations, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD (Traveling Exhibition)

2023 Summer Showcase Special Exhibition, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, MT

2022 Moving East, K Art, Buffalo, NY

2021 Cloud Cover, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX

2019 The Young Americans, Rainmaker Gallery, Bristol, UK

2018 Story Maps Fellowship, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM

2018 IMPRINT, Ralph T. Coe Arts Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2018 Lost Coast, Etiquette, Santa Fe, NM

ART FAIRS

2026 SF Art Fair, COL Gallery booth, San Francisco, California (Upcoming)

2025 INDEPENDENT Art Fair, Diane Rosenstein Gallery booth, New York, New York

2022 Art Toronto Art Fair, K Art Gallery booth, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

LECTURES / TALKS

2024 CreativeMornings Santa Fe Speaker, Vladem Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

2024 Artist Conversation with GAM Director Alyssa Cordova and Missoula Art MuseumCurator Brandon Reinties, Glacier Art Museum, Kalispell, MT

2023 Young Artists Balancing Tradition with Contemporary Expression Panel, Museum ofIndian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, NM

2023 Artist + Creative Conductor Conversation, Hecho a Mano, Santa Fe, NM

2023 Terran Last Gun: Artist Talk with Curator Brandon Reintjes, Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT

2022 Piikani Art, Blackfeet Community College, International Blackfoot Research Conference, Browning, MT

2021 Artist + Curator Conversation, Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio, TX

2019 Visual Arts Lecture Series, Bennington College, Bennington, VT

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

2023 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Visiting Artist Invitation, Snowmass Village, CO

2017 Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Local Artist-in-Residence,Santa Fe, NM

AWARDS

2024 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award, New York, NY

2020 First Peoples Fund, Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship, Rapid City, SD

2018 Santa Fe Art Institute, Story Maps Fellowship, in collaboration with the City of Santa Fe Fire Department, Mobile Integrated Health Office, Santa Fe, NM

2016 Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Goodman Aspiring Artist Fellowship,Santa Fe, NM

COLLECTIONS

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX

Bates Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME

Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia

Glacier Art Museum, Kalispell, Montana

Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA

Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, SD

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE

JoAnn Gonzalez Hickey Collection, CO

Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA

Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT

Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX

Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, MT

Newberry Library, Chicago, IL

North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA

PUBLICATIONS

Jordan Eddy, The People’s Biennial, New Mexico Field Guide, Southwest Contemporary, June 2025-2026

Maximilíano Durón, The Best Booths at Independent, From a Porcelain Janitor’s Cart to Abstract Ledger Drawings, Artnews, May 9, 2025

Parker Ewen, Standout Booths at the Independent Art Fair 2025, IMPULSE, May 9, 2025

Maria Owen, Terran Last Gun’s Eternal Ledger Drawings, Review, IMPULSE, April 3, 2025

Ashley M. Biggers, The Next Wave, Legacy, Santa Fe New Mexican, August, 2024

Mike Kordenbrock, With Hockaday Exhibition, Artist Terran Last Gun Brings Past and Present Together, Flathead Beacon, May 1, 2024

Chadd Scott, Terran Last Gun: Contemporary Spin on Ancient Tradition, Essential West, Medicine Man Gallery, June 28 2023

Cory Welsh, Terran Last Gun: Piikani artist’s geometric Indigenous abstraction, Missoulian,May 5, 2023

Alex De Vore, Branching Lines (Cover Story), Santa Fe Reporter, May 3, 2023

Lynn Trimble, 12 New Mexico Artists To Know Now: Terran Last Gun, Southwest Contemporary, May 27, 2022

Jennifer Levin, Making sense of the world with timeless design: Terran Last Gun’s serigraph prints, The Santa Fe New Mexican Pasatiempo, June 26, 2020

Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Bold Color and Shape by a Contemporary Piikani Artist, First Peoples Fund, February 3, 2020

Alex De Vore, First Solo, Santa Fe Reporter, May 29, 2019

Jordan Eddy, Mapping the Divide, Santa Fe Reporter, November 28, 2018

Alicia Guzman, IMPRINT, Santa Fe Reporter, August 8, 2018

SERVICE

Spring 2019–Fall 2021, City of Santa Fe, Art in Public Places Committee

PODCASTS

A Creative Excuse, Terran Last Gun, June 23, 2025

Collective Spirit, Terran Last Gun, S3 E6, April 24, 2025

Hello, Print Friend, Terran Last Gun, E194, June 20, 2023

A Creative Excuse, Terran Last Gun, May 26, 2019