Photograph by Samantha Tracy
Biography
Terran Last Gun / Saakwaynaamah’kaa (b. 1989, Browning, MT) is a Piikani (Blackfeet) citizen and visual artist. Last Gun’s work centers around the process of color exploration and visual documentation of nature, cosmos, cultural narratives, and recollections of home. Often employing geometric aesthetics, he is contributing to an ancient Indigenous North American narrative through various media that include ledger drawing, printmaking, painting, and photography.
Last Gun received his BFA in Museum Studies and AFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2016. He is a recipient of awards from the First Peoples Fund, 2020 Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship, and the Santa Fe Art Institute, 2018 Story Maps Fellowship. Most recently, he was named one of the 2022 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now in Southwest Contemporary (formerly THE Magazine). He currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Artist Statement
Often referencing Blackfoot painted lodges and the visual iconographic vocabulary that accompanies them, my work explores the varying relationships between color, shape, nature, and sky. Blackfoot painted lodges are visual masterpieces of the Great Plains. They depict the world and cosmos in which we live through our natural surroundings, symbolic animals and helpers, and the above world that connects us to the Sun, Moon, and Morning Star.
My work bridges the ancient to the contemporary. It reaches beyond, all while creating visual color stimulation in my varied approaches to making art: printmaking, painting, photography, and ledger drawing. I am revealing fragments of time, history, and Indigenous Abstraction—an art form that has continued for tens of thousands of years. I am creating a new Piikani art form that is bold, vivid, even humorous at times and has minimalist and geometric qualities that are potent in meaning, content, and place.
CV
TERRAN LAST GUN
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
2024 Terran Last Gun, Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell, MT (Upcoming)
2023 Terran Last Gun, K Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (Upcoming)
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, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX
2020 Terran Last Gun: Color Play, IAIA 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, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Store, Lloyd Kiva New Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
TWO PERSON EXHIBITION
2021 Terran Last Gun & Debora Sipple, Gallery Hózhó, Albuquerque, NM
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Landscapes of Survivance, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA (Upcoming)
2023 Special Exhibition, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, MT (Upcoming)
2022 Taking Flight, Gallery Hózhó, Albuquerque, NM
2022 Moving East, K Art Gallery, 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: 6, Ralph T. Coe Arts Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM
2018 Exquisite Corpse Spectacular, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
2018 Lost Coast, Etiquette, Santa Fe, NM
LECTURES / TALKS
2022 Piikani Art Presentation, Blackfeet Community College, International Blackfoot Research Conference, Browning, MT
2021 Virtual Artist Conversation, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX
2020 Instagram Live Artist Talk, Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM
2019 Visual Arts Lecture Series, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
2023 Anderson Ranch Visiting Artist, Snowmass Village, CO (Upcoming)
2017 IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Local Artist-in-Residence, Santa Fe, NM
FELLOWSHIP AWARDS
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
Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, SD
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM
Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX
Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM
PUBLICATIONS
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
Copyright © 2023 Terran Last Gun. All rights reserved.
Terran Last Gun 