Fly Catcher

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© Julie Buffalohead. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman. Image courtesy of the Ruth a…
Fly Catcher
© Julie Buffalohead. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Photo by Rik Sferra.
Artist/Maker (Ponca, born 1972)
Date2023
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 32 × 64 × 3 in. (81.3 × 162.6 × 7.6 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick '34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund
Object number2023.7
On view
DescriptionFrom the Jessica Silverman Gallery: In Fly Catcher, Buffalohead ruminates on a childhood memory of befriending a couple of pet house flies. Playing with this memory, a fantastic scenario is represented with various creatures interacting and floating within an in utero-like nether. Impossibly, Coyote has tamed two wild flies and has effectively leashed them with miniature collars. Opposite, the trickster takes the form of a rabbit brandishing a fly paper strip. Magpies, crows, garter snakes, downy woodpeckers, a chipmunk and an ermine are also indoctrinated in this pet menagerie, where umbilical cords connect the creatures to the womb. For the artist, the painting is a harkening back into early childhood memory. A time of disarray involving many moves between places and communities yields this snapshot, based on her encounters with critters that grew into a strong affinity. As she describes it "I was allowed as a kid to have these imaginary relationships with real animals." Even chastised for going so far as to naively lure wild squirrels into the house, the fondness and memory of these early years become gestated together during a time when she was not able to own actual house pets. Oh, and the flies were named Lovely and Dummy.  
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Additional Details

Exhibition History 2024-2025
Clinton, NY. The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College. "Menagerie: Animals in Art from the Wellin Museum," September 7, 2024 –June 8, 2025 (no cat.).
Signature Verso, lower left corner: "2023 / Julie Buffalohead"
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