Having climbed the stairs to Sara Siestreem’s solo show milk and honey at Cristin Tieren Gallery, viewers will be made all the more breathless by the artist’s striking works in hues of red, black, white, and gold. Images of shells in one work reference the place of origin of both a now-extinct oyster species and the artist — the Umpqua River Valley of the southern Oregon Coast — and bring to mind Joni Mitchell’s 1971 song “River”: “Oh, I wish I had a river / I could skate away on / I made my baby cry.”
As if set in motion by Mitchell’s lyrics, strands of red beads radiate, animate and eerie, from ceremonial ceramic hats in 3/15/2020 minion (2024). The sanguinary imagery, particularly the implied heads, evokes the heinous practice of scalping, promoted by the US government among settlers to expedite colonialization, including in Coos Bay. These hats, typically worn by women, also suggest hair, which for many Native American tribes symbolizes the human connection to the earth — the longer the hair, the closer to the Great Spirit. Siestreem synthesizes ecology, spirituality, violence, and femininity with curious cohesion.
