RYAN! Feddersen

“Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always” was named one of the 'Best Art of 2025' by the New York Times! It was such an honor to be a part of this exhibition. Congrats to all involved for the write up! While the exhibition closed yesterday, the publication is available for backorder through the U-Chicago Press.

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to Northern California to visit students at CalPoly and open Coyote and the Monsters Yet to Slay, which will be on view through December 13 at the Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery. Coyote & the Monsters Yet to Slay, is series of artworks that address contemporary social issues through the lens of Plateau lore. Individual artworks explore Coyote's interactions with monsters, both established in past stories and envisioned for the present day. In traditional stories, monsters exhibit anti-social behaviors which put themselves and their desires above all other living things. Monsters are often depicted as hoarders, bullies, abusers of power, and killers. Many of these stories bare stark resemblance to contemporary issues and are illustrated in new artworks with nods toward current manifestations. In other variations, new monsters are conceived to address unique modern monsters. Each artwork is laced with humor, play, and imaginative symbolism. Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery @calpolyhumboldtgalleries Open: Wed /Thurs 12pm-6pm Fri/Sat 11am-2pm 'Coyote & the Monsters Yet to Slay' was funded by the ndncollective Radical Imagination Grant.

Continued Post- 3/3 Outro Artwork for This Is Native Land 'To See a Dawn' features an array of glyphs that draw on imagery and events from each key learning within the exhibition. Petroglyphs and Pictographs are a historic part of our connection to the land, our relationships with nature, and telling the story of place across time. These contemporary glyphs are presented alternating between two states. At one extreme, the glyphs are underwater. As in the story of the River of Life, they are in constant change and movement. At the other extreme they are still and bathed in the dawn light, much of the time, they are somewhere in-between. To See a Dawn is an homage to the petroglyphs and pictographs inundated in the dam building era, where at numerous sites throughout Washington, glyphs were drowned by humans to take the life force from the river and convert it to energy. Dams, like other human constructions, are not permanent. We can and do, tear them down. Currently the waters are still risen, but in time they can also recede and reveal the records of our ancestors. To See a Dawn, 2025 RYAN! Feddersen Coated metal, fabric, and projected light on wood panels. Commissioned by the Washington State History Museum. @washingtonhistory Thank you to fabrication partner @blackmouthdesign , pleasure working with you! Photography by @joefreemanjunior

Continued Post- 2/3 Intro Artwork for This Is Native Land 'Face the Past, Face the Future' opens the exhibition with two sets of neon signs directing the viewer to alternate paths through which they may interpret the exhibit. This artificial choice mimics a linear sense of time. The exhibit, like time itself, is more complicated than a straight line. It curls around us, diverges and repeats. While much of ‘history' is fixated on making the past finite, these signs are an invitation to look for a future in the stories of the past. This exhibition is asking viewers to face a difficult and painful history, to "confront past genocidal actions and how they were integral to the forming of Washington State". The course we are on was not inevitable and the artwork could be read as a familiar warning, if we do not face this past, it might also become our future. There is another way to interpret the signs. The faces include a sly lip point, a gesture that nudges toward each side, as if to say, whether you look to the past or the future, the conclusion is the same, 'This is Native Land.' Face the Past, Face the Future, 2025 RYAN! Feddersen Neon on wood panels Commissioned by the Washington State History Museum @washingtonhistory Thank you to fabrication partner @radiantneon ! Amazing working with you to bring this design to fruition! Photography by @joefreemanjunior

This week a new permanent exhibition, 'This Is Native Land,' opens at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. It is quite unlike any history exhibition I have ever seen. It tells the story of Washington state through the lived experiences and voices of its Native people. It emphasizes tribal sovereignty, celebrates our achievements and culture, and doesn't shy away from recounting the acts of violence and oppression perpetrated by the state. Now more than ever, it is important to tell the truth about history. This exhibition is both challenging and beautiful and I am honored to have contributed the opening and closing artworks. (Artwork posts to follow, 1/3) @washingtonhistory

This past 2 years I've been working on a new series of artworks. Starting this fall, I'll be exhibiting more of this work at locations across the state and the greater Plateau region. I'm pleased to announce one of the first solo shows will be in Central Washington. 'Coyote & the Monsters Yet to Slay' RYAN! FEDDERSEN at The Confluence: Art in Twisp OCT 7 - NOV 15 Opening Reception OCT 11, 5-7pm Coyote & the Monsters Yet to Slay is a series of artworks which address contemporary social issues through the lens of Plateau storytelling. This solo exhibition of work by artist and Colville Tribal Member, Ryan Feddersen, explores Coyote's role as a monster slayer and proposes modern day people-devouring monsters for Coyote to symbolically vanquish. Reflecting both the present and nods to traditional stories, the works are laced with humor, play, and imaginative symbolism. This body of work was supported by the NDN Collective’s Radical Imagination Grant. Feddersen will exhibit prints created in residency at Crow's Shadow Art Institute and the Institute of American Indian Arts, glass vessels made at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, and a new large-scale mixed-media work on paper. The Confluence: Art in Twisp Community Gallery 104 Glover Street South, Twisp, WA @confluencegallery ndncollective @crows_shadow

'Affinities: Contemporary Artists of the Northwest Plateau Tribes' opens this week at The North Seattle College Art Gallery! This is a fantastic opportunity to see artwork from an extended Plateau region on this side of the mountains. OPENING RECEPTION Wednesday, October 1, 4-7pm On view Sep 29 -Nov 7 at North Seattle College, 9600 College Way N, Seattle, WA @frankie_cranky83 @laureniidastudio #corwinclairmont @spencerkeetoncunningham @carlyfeddersen @joe_feddersen @ryanfeddersen @jameslavadour @swawillabill @arae_form @araeform @north_seattle_college @nscartgallery You can also see my work at King Street Station! The youth curator group Fresh Perspectives recently opened- 'You, Me & Everything Between us'. On view Sep 4 - Oct 11 King Street Station, 303 S. Jackson St., Top Floor, Seattle, WA 98104 ARTS at King Street Station is open Wed. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and until 8 p.m. on First Thursdays 2nd Flyer image @monyeeart @fresh_perspectives_25 @seaofficeofarts

I’ve been very honored to get to work with @ryanfeddersen on public art for the Ship Canal Water Quality project. You can see this beautiful sidewalk inlay with imagery created by RYAN! in Wallingford at the intersection of N 35th Street and Interlake Ave N. RYAN!’s artwork depicts the interior of a washing machine, reminding us of how our domestic spaces are intertwined with water bodies. “The streets are our watershed.”- Seattle Public Utilities staff 
Saltwater Streets #publicart aligns with a massive storage tunnel diverting combined sewer overflows from the #shipcanalwaterqualityproject . The project encompasses multiple neighborhoods and several construction sites. The public art creates a connective thread amongst artists, neighborhoods, and waterways. Vaughn Bell conceptualized and led the public art project and designed multiple artworks. Vaughn also invited collaborating artists to design the inlays near their large scale permanent public artworks.
 Through words and imagery, we are invited to imagine our bodily, urban, and ethical relationship to a water system often invisible in our everyday lives. Each circular artwork is a portal from the street and sidewalk infrastructure to the watery world underneath stretching to the Salish Sea.  Pathways from home to sidewalk to an underground conveyance tunnel to the large storage tunnel to the wastewater treatment plant and ultimately to Salt Water (Puget Sound) are made visible. Poetic orienting phrases and words point to the past as well as presenting hopeful and symbiotic visions of the present and future.
 
Commissioned by Seattle Public Utilities 1% for Art in partnership with the @seaofficeofarts 
Photos by @spikemafford 
Fabrication by @intentionspace 
Artworks installed and planned 2024-2027 #environmentalart #waterquality #sidewalkart #seattleartist #artininfrastrcture

Artist @ryanfeddersen residency complete! It was such a joy having her in the studio, learning about coyote and the monsters he slays. We are really excited to share these with you later this year. **We have a mini surprise edition that will be dropped soon, so stay tuned 👀 . . . . . #lithography #litholove #printmaking #fineartprints #nativeartists #crowsshadow

Week one is in the books with artist @ryanfeddersen 🙌 Come see what we’ve been cooking up at Ryan’s artist reception on Thursday, May 15th at 5pm . . . . . #crowsshadow #crowsshadowinstituteofthearts #litholove #fineartptints #nativeartists #lithography

"For centuries, American institutions have flattened Native existence into a relic of the past, a historical footnote to be studied rather than a living, evolving force. Yet, as Indigenous Identities makes clear, the so-called “past” is still unfolding. Native artists have always operated outside the Western art world’s linear timeline — moving in circles, spirals, and returns — holding history as not something left behind but something to actively engage. In this sense, the exhibition doesn’t just correct the art world’s omissions; it dismantles the entire premise of progress as defined by colonial modernity. What emerges instead is an art history that refuses erasure, one that has always been here, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up." What a thoughtful review, glad to have my work discussed in the context of this phenomenal show. Even with my name misspelled... /1001119/indigenous-art-history-has-been-waiting-for-you-to-catch-up-zimmerli-art-museum/

In 2018 & 2019 I had the pleasure of attending the Indigenous Art Intensive at UBCO Kelowna. It is an incredible program that brings together artists, students, curators, and writers for a month of exchanging ideas and making work. Today is #ubcgivingday and a chance to support continued discourse and community building for indigenous artists and scholars. @indigenous_art_ubc @ubcokanagangallery https://givingday.ubc.ca/31090/gd2025/indigenous-art-intensive