OMAHA, NE.- The latest exhibition in Joslyn Art Museum’s Riley Contemporary Artists Project Gallery, an installation of new work created in Omaha in recent weeks by artist Brad Kahlhamer, opened November 14 and continues through April 17. Born in Tucson and adopted as an infant by a German-American family, Kahlhamer grew up disconnected from his Native American heritage. In the late 1970s, he visited the Heard Museum in Phoenix, where he had his first experience with Hopi katsina dolls — small masked and costumed figures meant to personify supernatural beings. Kahlhamer found his relationship with the katsinas to be more aesthetic than spiritual, and he began crafting his own doll-like sculptures out of found materials — wire, bicycle tires, bits of fabric, and feathers.

Katsinas and other objects, such as totem poles and dream catchers, with origins in various Native American cultures are recurring elements in Kahlhamer’s diverse body of work. However his paintings, works on paper, and sculptural tableaux draw on many other sources, most notably the punk style and graffiti aesthetic that characterized New York City’s gritty downtown neighborhoods in the 1980s and early 1990s. Among the artist’s other influences are music, particularly country and western; comic book graphics; and cartoons; as well as Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. Amalgamating these sources, Kahlhamer strives to create what he calls the “Third Place,” a mythological world where lived experience exists on the same plane as imagined reality.

This fall, Kahlhamer was in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, allowing him to delve into Joslyn’s Native American collections while becoming familiar with Omaha’s people and environs. Featuring work made during this residency, Kahlhamer’s installation in the Riley CAP Gallery draws from sources both outside and inside the Museum. As he embarked on “yonderings” (a term he prefers to “wanderings”) through Omaha and Council Bluffs — two cities he views as inexorably linked despite their differing personalities — he also looked back on the history of the region. Seeking inspiration in early depictions of Plains Indian cultures, Kahlhamer turned to the watercolors and prints of Karl Bodmer. He also discovered resonances with the detailed ink and watercolor drawings found in Joslyn’s 1875 ledger book by Southern Cheyenne artist Howling Wolf. Like his predecessors, Kahlhamer articulates the spiritual connection that exists among humans and animals and the natural world, as well as the complicated path of his own personal history. Similar to the drawings of Howling Wolf, Brad Kahlhamer’s work maps a multi-dimensional landscape that brings together the complex narratives of all the places he inhabits. Admission to Brad Kahlhamer is included in Joslyn’s free general Museum admission.

Brad Kahlhamer was born in Tucson, Arizona, and currently lives and works in New York. He has recently had solo exhibitions at venues including The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (2013); The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2008); and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (2004). Kahlhamer’s work is included in the collections of Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Denver Art Museum; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Milwaukee Art Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Seattle Art Museum, among others.