Natani Notah – Mní Wičóni (Water is life)

From a collaborative project and exhibition The Mind is Also a Landscape, presented at Public Land in Sacramento (November 16, 2019 - January 15, 2020). The project featured the work of nine contemporary artists whose varied practices encompass painting, sculpture, printmaking, performance and writing. Among the group, several artists produce work that is discernibly influenced by or produced in concert with the natural world, while for others that relationship is less direct. What is shared is the impulse to be drawn out from the familiar interior of the studio into a freer, less personal landscape of the natural world and to be receptive to its surprises and liberations.

From each artist, we requested they share personal photographs from periods of ‘free time’ spent in the outdoors, not engaged in the act of ‘making’ or ‘doing’ but in receptive exploration. We then reproduced a selection of those images in large format as single-color silkscreen prints which, when installed, built a kind of panorama of collective creative experiences undertaken outside of their typical, urban environment in disparate natural locations.

In her seminal book Wanderlust: A History of Walking writer Rebecca Solnit proposes that nature can behave as a pace as well as a place. The pace of a person walking allows the natural world to introduce a new time metric, one that is inherently bodily. In many ways The Mind is Also a Landscape offers its own meditation on time; The seasonal and geological time of landscape; The suspension of time within the camera’s frame; The symbiotic relationship of the artists’ time spent inside and outside the space of studio production. To the viewer, the exhibition proposes a consideration of how the natural environment influences artists in immeasurable ways and by extension how it influences all of our lives, our imagination and our wellbeing.

Natani Notah is an interdisciplinary artist and a proud member of the Navajo Nation. Her current artistic practice explores contemporary Native American identity through the lens of Diné womanhood.

Notah has exhibited her work at numerous institutions, including apexart, New York City; NXTHVN, New Haven, CT; Tucson Desert Art Museum, Tucson, AZ; Gas Gallery, Los Angeles; Mana Contemporary, Chicago; and SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco. She has received awards from Art Matters, International Sculpture Center, and the San Francisco Foundation. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Forbes, and Sculpture Magazine, and she has completed residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Grounds for Sculpture, Headlands Center for the Arts, This Will Take Time, Oakland, and Kala Art Institute. Notah holds a BFA with a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Cornell University and an MFA from Stanford University. She is currently a 2021-2023 Tulsa Artist Fellow.

Our typical framing practice is to float mount prints with 1-inch of space around the print. This is a method of framing that keeps the art fully visible in the frame and leaves the edges of the cotton papers exposed. A spacer is added to the frame to keep the artwork from touching the plexiglass. Float mounting requires adhering the print to an acid free foam core back or mat board using acid free linen tape.

UV-filtering plexiglass is used for all frames, an option that has become the industry standard. Plexiglass is lighter, scratch-resistant & shatter-resistant (essential for shipping). It also provides more UV protection and less glare than glass.

Standard Framing – We work with online framing company Simply Framed to offer three standard framing finishes; White, Natural and Black. For those interested in different finishes beyond these three, they can view the full selection of Simply Framed options and email us prior to purchase, allowing us to provide a quote and finalize arrangements.

More about the Standard Framing process

Premium Framing – We work with Boston-based fine art framers, Adjective Art & Framing to select specific framing options for each of our invited artist editions. Adjective builds custom-made contemporary hardwood frames for artists, collectors, galleries, and museums. Their standard line of moldings are milled from sustainably sourced hardwoods (often Ash, Maple, Walnut or Cherry) that are then custom stained or lacquered. Adjective backs all their frames with sturdy wooden strainers, reinforcing their structure and allowing their profiles to be narrower - an elegant way to present contemporary prints.

For those interested in different finishes beyond those we’ve selected, they can view the full offering of finishes from Adjective and email us prior to purchase, allowing us to provide a quote and finalize arrangements.

More about the Premium Framing Process