Brad Kahlhamer’s mixed media painting and collage, Yondering, exemplifies his complex expressionistic approach that blends enigmatic figures, landscape elements, symbols, and language to explore the complicated path of his own identity. The animated scene functions as a locus of personal memories, an abstracted narrative that according to the artist, “maps the self.” Kahlhamer coined the word “yondering” to describe the experiential navigations of his tripartite identity that includes his Native American birthright, his adoptive childhood growing up in Wisconsin with a German American family, and his adult life working as a musician and artist on the Lower East Side of New York City. “Abstraction is a form of cartooning with its own signatures and readings, ” he explains, “but in the end is perceived as person.
Read on
I’m profiling myself, but am interested in the history of those caricatures as well. Basically, I’m making landscapes that I can live in, within that history.” According to the artist, his inclusion of the words “Ugh” and “Ughskin” refers to the racial slurs he endured as a youth growing up in a predominantly white community. Here, Kahlhamer embraces them as symbols of strength and pride in his Native heritage.
