Starr Hardridge is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and grew up in Oklahoma. He studied illustration and painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and later had a one-year residency at the Nadaï Verdon Atelier of Decorative Arts in France.
In his career as a decorative painter and conservator, he worked on the Connecticut Governor’s Mansion in 2011 and the Brumidi Corridors of the U.S. Capitol in 2012 and 2013. At the Capitol, he painted trompe-l’oeil moldings that looked three-dimensional on the flat walls.
Wvko-hvtke, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30”
Now immersed in fine art painting, he takes trompe-l’oeil in another direction, causing the viewer to think they are looking at images made in beadwork. They are, rather, made up of tiny drops of acrylic paint echoing the pointillist technique of the French painters George Seurat and Charles Signac. Hardridge honors his own nation’s beadmaking and storytelling heritage in his large canvases.
The Muscogee are not native to Oklahoma. They arrived there after their forced removal from their ancestral homelands in Alabama in 1836. Beadwork was a prominent art form in the Southeastern Woodlands from the late 18th century until the removal era.
Wild Horses, High Country, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 36”When he discovered Muscogee beadwork, he was impressed by the organic patterns and bright colors which now animate his own work.
Sitting at a table, he lays a nylon mesh over a black canvas and then builds up layers of Venetian plaster. He then lays out a design with a white watercolor pencil and begins the arduous process of applying dots of pure color.
In Wvko-hvtke (Muscogee for snowy heron or white egret), the white bird ascends toward the mountains and the sky. White heron feathers figure prominently in the ceremonies of the tribes of the Southeast.
Flower Girl, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20”The Council Oak Comprehensive Healthcare facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, commissioned him to produce a series of large-scale paintings. His pointillist Flower Girl is derived from a portrait in one of the large traditional paintings. He recounts, “My goal was to inspire health healing and wellness through art. I wanted to create work that would allow the onlooker to leave with a sense of balance, unity and peace…My main inspiration comes from the simple child’s prayer of my daughter Lillian, but in a deeper sense, it is an affirmation of the ‘Breath Giver’ itself. Elements of Muscogee beadwork, ribbon and patchwork design were incorporated into the background. Creating balance and harmony in all the compositions were key for this work.”
An exhibition of his recent work, Renewal, featuring more than 10 paintings, will be held at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, February 24 through March 11. —
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