Tureen will debut at Independent with a solo presentation featuring work by Sonya Kelliher-Combs.

The work of Indigenous artist Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq and Athabascan) forges new paths in sculpture, painting, and drawing by incorporating both traditional and synthetic materials in the formation of a singular visual lexicon. From walrus gut to acrylic gel polymer, porcupine quill to nylon thread, her materials serve as the foundation for surfaces and forms that recall post-minimalists like Eva Hesse or Jackie Winsor but reveal new kinds of beauty, new monuments to injustice, that emerge from her people and homelands. The works on view represent significant additions to multiple ongoing series in Kelliher-Combs’ practice that embody this singular approach.

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Kelliher-Combs' work is currently on view in Shifting Landscapes at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, Smoke In Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time at the Hudson River Museum, NY and in the Hawai'i Triennial at the Hawaii Contemporary. Later this year her work will be included in An Indigenous Present at the ICA Boston curated by Jeffrey Gibson. A monograph of her work, Mark, was published by Hirmer Verlag in 2024, edited by Julie Decker, Ph. D. Recent solo exhibitions include Secrets at Andrew Kreps (2024) Mark at Tureen (2023) and Stars (2023) and The Visceral Trilogy exhibitions at Alaska State Museum.

She is a recipient of the United States Arts Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Fellowship, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, Rasmuson Fellowship, Anchorage Mayor’s Arts Award and Alaska Governor’s Individual Artist Award.

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Her work is included in the collections of Anchorage Museum, Alaska State Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Eiteljorg Museum, Forge Project, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Tia Collection, National Museum of the American Indian, University of Alaska Museum of the North, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

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