Diehl Gallery 

presents

DOUGLAS SCHNEIDER: Night Visions

9.10.2021 - 10.30.2021

Opening Reception: Friday, September 10, 2021 • 5–8 pm

155 West Broadway, Jackson Hole

In an effort to keep our community safe, we will not offer food or drink and masks are required in the gallery. Thank you for your understanding.

We are pleased to present Douglas Schneider’s second solo exhibition at Diehl Gallery entitled, Night Visions.

This body of work focuses on the form of the tipi and its deeply rooted meaning for indigenous cultures, not only as a form of shelter, but also as a form of spiritual connection to both ancestors and to the planet and its elements. These works are vibrantly alive, with stunning color palettes and details that give depth and a more rounded cultural grounding to the work beyond the central subject of the tipi. The pieces are infused with the connection between the artist and his Cherokee heritage. There is a sense of otherworldly creation but also a stylistic sense of destruction, with layered swaths of color, some of which obliterate the underlying material, some which just gently obscure it. These elements come together to have a striking impressionist effect imbued with emotion and power.

Schneider writes:

All of the Plains Tribes that lived in tipis considered their dwellings extensions of their physical and spiritual lives.

The three poles used to anchor the structure represent the past, present and future. Another seven poles are then placed around these three main anchors in a clockwise fashion. Each of these poles have specific meanings, like the Seven Brothers or the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper and the Lakota Seven Sacred Sites. Two more poles are placed on the outside to hold the flaps open. The completed twelve poles represent the twelve months of the year and the formation of time and seasons. Once completed the interior would be seen as physical protection from weather and the connection to the spirit world.

The vortex at which the poles are tied together connects us to the spirit world. The ancestors live in this spirit world in the upper reaches of the tipi, therefore our ancestors are always with us.

The tipi’s shape represents the sacred circle or the never-ending cycle of life. The floor represents the earth. The walls represent the sky and the poles represent the trails that extend from the earth to the spirit world.

 The tipi embodies the understanding of the connection between the physical and the metaphysical realm, and to live in it meant everything was in balance and harmony. 

This exhibition will benefit

For more information about FNDI, CLICK HERE

The opening reception of this exhibition coincides with
Palates and Palettes, the kickoff celebration of the
Jackson Hole Arts Festival.