War Dancer

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This painting has a mobile appearance. Taking from the Sioux skin-painting technique in the use of the plain background of space, the figure dancer is positioned in dark space to affect a feeling of isolated movement in space. The dark background accentuates by the contrasts of light and dark the movement of triangular patterns that objectify the dancing figure. He is a warrior in battle dress going through his combat movements in rhythm with the dance drum. The linear horizontal stress of patterns gives the illusion of a mobile, fluid in movement and plasticity, suspended in mid-air. The extended parts of his paraphernalia represented time and space of the dance. The subject matter is a dancer with all the parts necessary for the figure; through it appears more or less an abstraction it is a complete figure in action. The figure was objectified through esthetic points.

The procedural method of Sioux art tradition composing with esthetic points to objectify ideas, designs, and forms was used here for the painting. There is a tradition in Sioux art where the artist commits to memory esthetic points in a space. These are terminal points of objectifying lines or design lines in an abstraction. The points were essential not only for the beauty of lines but also for objectification. So the points have a multiple purposes in a composition. The sense of totality in expression and the dimensional aspects can be attributed to the use of esthetic points.