Gerald Stone: worlds out of time landscapes within landscapes, tribes, spirits, watchers, seekers, red-haired women, murdered and missing, space stretched and bent, stories vibrating across time.
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Sad-Eyed Sisters of the Old Lands, 2020
C
rocker Art Museum in Sacramento describes Gerald Stone as a “beloved local master artist.” Gerald himself just brushes off the accolades and calls his work “weird.” His stylized art, which he describes as a conversation between himself and his Creator, bridges traditional and contemporary styles and themes. Hope Born in the far reaches of rural Oklahoma, Stone was a kid who liked to draw and has lived a life of peaks and valleys, always around the midline of art. Just before he was scheduled to join the Army, headed most likely to Vietnam, he was accepted for a two-year program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, a city often considered the center of the Native art world. Eventually, he earned a BFA from the University of Oklahoma, and spent years juggling art and construction work to support his family, entering juried competitions and selling his work through galleries. While planning a solo exhibition, he was involved in a serious car accident which derailed his interest in creating art for more than a decade. In 2009, he finally held his long-planned solo exhibition, which sold out, and he now shows in several galleries and works from his home in Sacramento. Professor Nicolas G. Rosenthal in his article for the Crocker Art Museum wrote, “Themes of multiple worlds, prophecies and ignored warnings, Native cosmology, and the fluidity of time and place run throughout Stone’s recent work, immersing the viewer in compositions that are both poignantly relevant and slyly whimsical.”
