Marie Watt
Marie Watt uses powerful symbolism, text and group activity to create impassioned sculptural works. Her work is timely, synthesizing mythologies and history from her Native American heritage seamlessly interwoven with current international issues. In her work images of wolves and dogs reference animals as the First Teachers within Iroquois oral tradition and La Lupa Capitolina, the Etruscan she-wolf nursing of the mythological founders of Rome. Watt’s sculptures of stacked woolen blankets invoke their daily domestic use as much as art historical pillars like Trajan’s Column, Brancusi’s pedestals, and the great totem poles of the Northwest US.
Watt is an artist and citizen of the Seneca Nation with German-Scots ancestry, which informs her work and process deeply. Her layered points of influence are reflected in her artwork, particularly text elements featuring language pulled from and discussing Indigenous knowledge and Iroquois protofeminism, the matriarchal structures of certain Native American tribes, the rise of social activism throughout the 20th century, and the anti-war and anti-hate content of 1960s and 1970s music- such as the Marvin Gaye song, “What’s Going On.” Messages of both longing and hope from the past that still resonate today.
There is a recurring use of the word “mother”. Watt explains “The Iroquois concept of ‘mother’ is broad, extending from one’s mother through a long line of women.” In lived experience individuals’ relationships with their own mothers are varied and complex, falling across the spectrum from adored and loved to loathed. Instead of exclusively satisfying these expectations, Watt expands the definition, making room for a broader concept. Seeking a little bit of the caring band of attributes associated with mothers in all of us.
Like Josef Beuys and Wolfgang Laib, her specific choices of materials culled from the everyday are deep with meaning. Watt’s symbolic use of textiles, in particular, is a central tenet of her work. Whether a shirt or a blanket, these are the items that protect us against cold and external dangers. We wrap ourselves in it like a second skin. Textiles consistently play a role in Watts’ works, but especially in Blanket Stories she deals with them in a special way. She repurposes her materials from pieces that were actually owned and donated by people, embedded with their own histories before even becoming part of her projects. These origins again underline the importance of community and connection over time, reinforcing a link between the object (the textile) and the narrative in the form of writing (the story). A focus in recent years has been sewn tapestries, often produced through collaboration with sewing circles around North America. social engagements in which the fellowship and storytelling around the table can be crucial to the resultant object.
Watt deals with history and presents it in a form that is characterized by humanity. One can understand her as a conduit for the past into the present. She forms platforms that are open to new thoughts about the past, present and future.
Watt holds an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University; she attended Willamette University and the Institute of American Indian Arts; and in 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Willamette University.
Watt’s work has been on view in 2020 at: The Whitney Museum in the exhibition Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, the Yale University Art Gallery in Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists.
Watt was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Her work is in the permanent collections of National Gallery of Canada, the Portland Art Museum, the Smithsonian, Renwick Gallery, Albright-Knox Gallery, The Whitney Museum in NY, Seattle Art Museum, US Library of Congress, Denver Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, and more.
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Singing Everything: Crescendo (Staccato), 2023
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Companion Species (First and Last), 2023
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Shared Horizon (Eastern Door), 2023
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (Rattle), 2023
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Shared Horizon (Keepers of the Western Door), 2023
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Companion Species (Source), 2023
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Blanket Stories: Baby, Baby, Baby, 2023
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Companion Species (Floating and Held), 2022
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (London Tower), 2022
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Companion Species (Constellation), 2022
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Companion Species (Gather to Sing), 2021
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Companion Species (Envelop), 2021
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Companion Species (This Soil), 2021
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Skywalker Greets Sunrise, VIII, 2021
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (Sunrise), 2021
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (Dawn), 2021
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (Calling Sky World),, 2021
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (Portrait), 2021
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Skywalker/Skyscraper (Register), 2020
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Antipode (Study in dusty rose), 2020
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Companion Species (Speech bubble), 2019
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Flint/Sapling, 2019
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Blanket Stories: Beacon, Marker, Ohi-yo, 2015
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In Search of Liberty
Group Show 12 Apr - 24 May 2024 -
Stereo Sights and Sounds
Group Show 11 Jun - 30 Jul 2023 -
Marie Watt
Singing Everything 12 Mar - 20 May 2023 -
Contaminated Landscape
Group Show 16 Jun - 12 Aug 2022 -
The Pattern of Patience
Group Show 17 Jun - 24 Jul 2021 -
Marie Watt
Turtle Island 15 Oct 2020 - 15 Jan 2021
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Marie Watt in The New York Times
April 27, 2024 -
Marie Watt in Forbes
April 22, 2024 -
Marie Watt at Print Center New York
January 25, 2024 -
Marie Watt Receives 2023 PEM Prize
November 4, 2023 -
Marie Watt in BOMB Magazine
September 26, 2023 -
Marie Watt in The New York Times
September 11, 2023 -
Marie Watt in Fad Magazine
September 8, 2023 -
Marie Watt in The Art Newspaper
September 7, 2023 -
Stereo Sights and Sounds in Hyperallergic
July 12, 2023 -
Marie Watt in Cultured Mag
May 11, 2023 -
Marie Watt in The Brooklyn Rail
April 4, 2023 -
Marie Watt in W Magazine
February 9, 2023 -
Marie Watt at the Buffalo History Museum
July 22, 2022 -
Marie Watt at Hunterdon Art Museum
March 2, 2022 -
Marie Watt in Hyperallergic
December 11, 2021 -
Marie Watt at Yale University Art Gallery
November 26, 2021 -
Marie Watt in Art in America
November 3, 2021 -
Marie Watt at Hunterdon Art Museum
September 25, 2021 -
MARC STRAUS on Artsy’s Best Booths
September 11, 2021 -
MARC STRAUS in The Art Newspaper
September 11, 2021 -
Marie Watt in The Los Angeles Times
August 7, 2021 -
Marie Watt in The Denver Post
July 20, 2021 -
Marie Watt in The New York Times
July 9, 2021 -
Marie Watt in The Art Newspaper
May 26, 2021 -
Marie Watt in The New York Times
May 23, 2021 -
Marie Watt in The Wall Street Journal
May 1, 2021 -
Marie Watt to Speak at BAMPFA
April 16, 2021 -
Marie Watt Work Acquired by Metropolitan Museum of Art
March 25, 2021 -
Marie Watt in SAR Panel
March 13, 2021 -
Marie Watt at Wallach Art Gallery
March 3, 2021 -
Marie Watt, Jeanne Silverthorne, Anne Samat, Rona Pondick, and Anna Leonhardt at Nassau County Museum of Art
January 7, 2021 -
Marie Watt at Loro Piana New York
December 16, 2020 -
Marie Watt in Conversation with Nancy Marie Mithlo
December 3, 2020 -
Marie Watt at PAFA
November 20, 2020 -
Marie Watt in The Art Newspaper
October 17, 2020 -
Marie Watt at Whitney Museum
September 20, 2020 -
Marie Watt at Denver Museum
September 18, 2020 -
Marie Watt at Tang Teaching Museum
September 18, 2020 -
Marie Watt at Heard Museum of Art
September 1, 2020