Lorenzo Clayton is a contemporary Navajo sculptor, printmaker, conceptual and

installation Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian li ...

artist. His artwork is notable for exploring the concepts of spirituality through abstraction.

Background

Lorenzo Clayton was born and raised on the

Tohajiilee Indian Reservation To’Hajiilee ( nv, Tó Hajiileehé, ), Cañoncito Band of Navajos is a non-contiguous section of the Navajo Nation lying in parts of western Bernalillo, eastern Cibola, and southwestern Sandoval counties in the U.S. state of New Mexico, west ...

. Moving to New York City in 1973 Clayton earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in 1977. Between graduation and his teaching career he worked in the printing industry, then, in 1993, he was named assistant professor at Cooper Union and has also served as lithography instructor at

Parsons The New School for Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhat ...

Clayton is a professor in the printmaking department at Cooper Union.

Artistic career

Spiritual exploration

Clayton's artwork is heavily influenced by the search for the spiritual, which he believes is seen throughout Indigenous cultures around the world. Through exploration of the

ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...

Clayton makes an effort for spiritual nourishment. In the 1986–1995 series ''Richard's Third Hand'' Clayton explored his own spirituality through his love for abstraction and assemblage. The series ''Come Across'' (1994–2000) had Clayton blending both Christianity and Navajo spirituality to explore a personal loss of self. This artistic and spiritual exploration shows the journey Clayton made to reconnect with his Navajo identity. In 2006 Clayton exhibited his "mythistoryquest" installations at the

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

, New York. The exhibition, titled "Expeditions of the Spirits", featured installation and paperworks, examining the parallels between Christianity and Indigenous religions.

Collaborations

Collaborations with other artists and creators remain an imperative part of Clayton's career. In 2004 Clayton began working with fellow Cooper Union professor and engineer George Sidebotham on a series called ''Inner Equations''. With a mission to use

scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...

to explore

irrational Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. T ...

thoughts and ideas, the two used Sidebotham's knowledge of

mathematical formula In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwee ...

e to attempt to explain spiritual growth and relationships. Originally installed at the

Jersey City Museum The Jersey City Museum was a municipal art museum in Jersey City, New Jersey. The establishment opened in 1901 and was housed in the main branch of the Jersey City Public Library. It relocated to a new building in 2001, but due to financial dif ...

and then the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

, the installation featured a series of

chalkboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...

s mounted on opposing walls, one side of the room is painted white, the other side is painted black, to represent positive and negative. The chalkboards have diagrams and scribblings all over them, reminiscent of the chalkboard works of

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...

. The writings, diagrams, and equations show the benefits of good and bad relationships on a person. Clayton also displayed the journal he kept during the creation of the artwork. In 2009 Clayton collaborated with filmmaker and sound engineer Jacob Burckhardt to create ''Current'', a 3-minute

video installation Video installation is a contemporary art form that combines video technology with installation art, making use of all aspects of the surrounding environment to affect the audience. Tracing its origins to the birth of video art in the 1970s, it has ...

as part of

Wave Hill Wave Hill is a estate in the Hudson Hill section of Riverdale in the Bronx, New York City. Wave Hill currently consists of public horticultural gardens and a cultural center, all situated on the slopes overlooking the Hudson River, with exp ...

's exhibition "The Muhheakantuck in Focus". Muhheakantuck is a Lenape word meaning "the river that flows both ways" and was the original name for the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. The group exhibition featured work by contemporary artists from North and Central America creating artworks about the effects of

Henry Hudson Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States. In 1607 and 16 ...

's contact with Indigenous people. Burckhardt and Clayton created an interpretation of that literal meaning creating a video displaying the river moving in different directions and flows. It represents metaphorically the ongoing changes and history of the river, "suggesting that the contact between Henry Hudson's Dutch expedition and the Lenape people was a pivotal point in time in the continuum of this force of nature."

Major collections

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is an art museum in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The Eiteljorg houses an extensive collection of visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as Western Ame ...

, Phoenix, AZ * Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ * Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ *

Museum of Northern Arizona The Museum of Northern Arizona is a museum in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States, that was established as a repository for Indigenous material and natural history specimens from the Colorado Plateau. The museum was founded in 1928 by zoologist ...

, Flagstaff, AZ *

, Washington, DC *

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, A ...

, Newark, NJ *

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

, Tucson, AZ.

Notable exhibitions

*''IN/SIGHT'', 2010,

Chelsea Art Museum The Chelsea Art Museum (CAM) was a contemporary art museum located at 556 West 22nd Street on the corner of Eleventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The museum focused on post-war European art. The museum was in ...

*''The Muhheakantuck in Focus'', 2009,

, New York City *''Relevant: Reflection-Reformation-Revival: Rethinking Contemporary Native American Art'', 2009, Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York City *''The Importance of In/Visibility: Recent Work by Native American Artists Living in New York City'', 2009, Abrazo Interno Gallery *''Native Voices'', 2008,

The Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University LIU Brooklyn is a private university in Brooklyn, New York. It is the original unit and first of two main campuses of the private Long Island University system. Campus LIU Brooklyn is located at the intersection of Flatbush and DeKalb Avenu ...

, Brooklyn, New York *''New Tribe'', 2006, National Museum of the American Indian, New York City *''Moment by Moment: Mediation For The Hand'', 2006,

North Dakota Museum of Art The North Dakota Museum of Art (NDMOA) is the official art museum of the American state of North Dakota. Located on the campus of the University of North Dakota (UND) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the museum is a private not-for-profit institutio ...

, Grand Forks, North Dakota *''Paumanok'', 2006, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York *''Inner Equations'', 2006, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona *''Who Stole the TeePee?'' 2000, National Museum of the American Indian, traveling *'' Osaka Triennale, 1994, Japan *''The New Native American Aesthetic'', 1984,

California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...

, Carsan, California *''No Trinkets, No Beads'', 1984,

Palace of Nations The Palace of Nations (french: Palais des Nations, ) is the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva, located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was built between 1929 and 1938 to serve as the headquarters of the League of Nations. It has served ...

, Geneva, Switzerland As well as exhibitions at various private galleries and other museums such as the Morris Museum, Museum of the Rockies,

Seattle Center Seattle Center is an arts, educational, tourism and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington, United States. Spanning an area of 74 acres (30 ha), it was originally built for the 1962 World's Fair. Its landmark feature is the tall Space Needle ...

, Pratt Manhattan and others.

Major awards

*''Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art'', 1999, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art *''Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award", 1986,

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expressio ...

*''New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant'', 1983,

New Jersey State Council on the Arts The New Jersey State Council on the Arts was founded in 1966 to support artistic activities in the state of New Jersey. It is funded by the New Jersey State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Art ...

*''Artist-in-Residence'', 1982,

Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...

References

External links

Lorenzo Clayton
Native American Artist Roster of AMERINDA Inc.
Lorenzo Clayton
Vision Project, by Shanna Ketchum-Heap of Birds

at the Peiper-Riegraf Collection

from the NMAI's "Who Stole the TeePee?" exhibition.
"Native New Yorkers: Vision Quest"
''Maverick Arts Magazine'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Clayton, Lorenzo Navajo artists Contemporary sculptors Modern printmakers Cooper Union faculty Cooper Union alumni Sculptors from New Mexico Native American installation artists Native American conceptual artists Native American printmakers Native American sculptors 1950 births Living people Artists from New York City Sculptors from New York (state)