There is something in the image of a tipi on the open prairie beneath a storm sky that reaches past the merely beautiful into something older and more necessary — the sight of a human structure holding its place in a vast and indifferent landscape, rooted in the earth and open to the sky and entirely sufficient to both. Standing Ground captures that quality in a black and white composition of extraordinary atmospheric power: three white tipis rising from the tall prairie grass in receding perspective, their poles crossing above them in the characteristic gesture of the form, the dramatic storm clouds massing behind them in great dark volumes that fill the upper two-thirds of the frame with a turbulent, charged energy that makes the stillness of the tipis below all the more remarkable. The tipis do not lean or tremble — they simply stand, as they have always stood, as they were designed to stand, in weather far worse than this and on ground far more contested. The black and white palette is the only possible choice for an image of this tonal and emotional complexity — color would soften what needs to be stark, would prettify what needs to be true. The tall prairie grass fills the foreground with a dark, textured richness that anchors the image in the physical reality of the Great Plains landscape, and the three tipis recede from large to small in a natural perspective that gives the composition depth and draws the eye back through the frame toward the horizon and the storm beyond. This is a landscape image and a cultural image simultaneously — the Great Plains as they have always been, the tipi as it has always stood within them, the storm as it has always come and always passed. Together with its natural companions Ancient and Present — Native American Fine Art Portrait, Regalia — Native American Fine Art Portrait, and The Unbroken — Native American Fine Art Portrait, Standing Ground completes a body of Native American fine art that honors the full breadth of the culture — its ceremony, its portraiture, and its relationship to the land that has always been its deepest foundation. On ChromaLuxe Metal or Lumachrome HD TruLife Acrylic, the luminous black and white tonal range, the extraordinary atmospheric depth of the storm clouds, and the fine textural detail of the prairie grass and tipi canvas render with exceptional clarity and presence — making Standing Ground one of the most powerful and culturally resonant landscape images in the entire collection.

Limited edition of 50.

Photo © copyright by Tamara Gooch.

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