Jim Yellowhawk

JIM YELLOWHAWK

Diptych: Honoring the wachi-oyate “dancers," 2025 (done in Dakar), Pencil, Ink, Ledger Paper, 17.5 × 29.3 inches

This diptych was created during my residency at Hotel Le Djoloff. It draws a connection between Lakota chicken dancers and Zaouli dancers from Côte d'Ivoire. The idea came to me after seeing a Zaouli mask in Dakar. Its dance reminded me of the Lakota tradition. The work is a tribute to both — two cultures expressing identity and spirit through movement.

The Great Race around He Sapa/Black Hills, 2025, Mixed media (Giclée canvas print), 20.5 X 23.5 in

This piece shows an origin story of where I am from and live today. It is the story of a great race that was held between the “buffalo nation” and the people, or two-legged, to see who would sacrifice themselves so the other may live. The winged ones flew for the people. It was a hard race. They all raced so hard that the blood from their bodies formed the red rim around the Black Hills as can be seen from high up. The trickster bird, the Magpie, caught a ride on a buffalo, and flew to victory. The ancestors watched from the universe as the red racetrack created He Sapa/Black Hills (in South Dakota, USA) from the effort all of those who ran the race.

Gratitude, 2022 Pencil, ink on ledger paper (Giclée canvas print), 11 X 18 inches

Sometimes in life you are given unexplained gifts. It is a mystery. You are humbled and in awe of these gifts, connecting you to this great mystery, that is something broader, giving you gratitude. In Lakota, and other indigenous nations in North America, the eagle is highly respected, an ultimate gift, and carries prayers to Creator.

Hehaka Pa - Elk Head, 2019, Pencil, ink on ledger paper (Giclée canvas print), 29 X 36 inches

This was created in honor of my great grandfather, Hehaka Pa/Elk Head, a Sans Arc keeper of the pipe. He defended his people and way of life at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. As a result of broken treaties, forced surrender, and a move to life on a reservation, keepers of the pipe, like my great grandfather kept the people strong.

Dancing with My Ancestors, 2016, Acrylic, ink, quilled medicine wheel (Giclée canvas print), 20 x 20 in

This piece is of four traditional dancers. Each color represents the colors on the medicine wheel. The medicine wheel represents the four directions. Black is west and represents the horse nation. Red is north and represents the buffalo nation. Yellow is east and represents the elk nation. White is south and represents the geese nation. Medicine wheels are a part of many cultures. These colors are very symbolic in my Lakota culture and are used in my personal regalia which I wear to dance.

Jim Yellowhawk is an enrolled member of both the Itazipco Band of the Lakota, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the Onondaga, Iroquois Nation. He grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, immersed in the artistic traditions of his ancestors. The grandson of master beadworker Annie Yellowhawk and son of artist Jerry Yellowhawk, Jim learned early that art can be ceremony – a way to honor memory, preserve cultural identity, and heal.

His formal study of art at Marion College and the Ohio School of Art and Design deepened his skill across media, but his work remains guided by traditional spirituality. Horse, buffalo, elk, geese, and eagle nations often appear alongside the medicine wheel and the flowing lines of ledger art, an historic form used to record Native American experience.

Yellowhawk’s practice is animated by what exhibition co-curator Paul G. Chandler describes as a call to “restore sacred harmony,” to reawaken awareness of our deep kinship with the earth and one another. His works invite viewers to walk gently, to remember that all things share the same breath, and to envision a wholeness beyond division.

For HEALING: Connecting Threads of Traditional Wisdom in Dakar, Senegal, Yellowhawk presents fifteen works – from The Great Race around He Sapa/Black Hills to Dragonfly Nation (self-portrait) – that chart a journey through grief, resilience, and gratitude.

During his three-week residency in Dakar, he created two new paintings in dialogue with Senegalese culture and spirituality, and co-created a collaborative work with Senegalese artist Baye Ndiaga Diouf, weaving Lakota and Senegalese wisdom traditions. Together these works offer a visual bridge across the Atlantic: an invitation to healing, to honoring ancestral wisdom, and to seeing that Indigenous vision belongs fully within the global contemporary art conversation.

Shannon D. Smith, Historian, Author and Director of Program Development, CARAVAN

Ledger Art – An Introduction

Ten of Jim Yellowhawk's works in this exhibition are on ledger paper. Ledger Art originated in the late 19th century among Plains Indian people in the American West. The loss of buffalo meant the loss of the canvas that had been used for pictographic narratives for millennia. As a result, discarded ledger and accounting books were used as the new canvas so that important events and stories could continue to be expressed and recorded. A revival of Ledger Art began in the 1960s and continues to the present day. The medium is a powerful connection to the past, reflecting a proud cultural heritage and identity.

Watch a short video about Jim Yellowhawk's collaboration with Baye Ndiaga Diouf

For further information:

-Watch a video interview at Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation: https://tinyurl.com/5yavn8cm

-Read a CARAVAN interview with Jim Yellowhawk: www.oncaravan.org/post/jimyellowhawk