Artists Talk To The Past

The works on the wall are made of bright concentric rings, like tree trunks or onions, but also like astronomical objects, orbits. They’re things to enter, things to fall into. There’s a sound in the room, faraway and soothing, and there’s something different even about the air of the room. It’s hard to place exactly how it all adds up, but it does. And the overall effect is that rare thing in today’s politically charged art world: It’s soothing. Which is all the more impressive when you discover that there’s meaning behind the solace.

“Seven Spans” — running now at Artspace through June 29, with an artist’s talk on May 30 from 6 to 8 p.m. — is a series of 10 fiber and corn-husk sculptures by Erin Lee Antonak. According to the exhibit’s accompanying artist statement, the pieces are ​“dynamic meditations on how we might help ourselves heal and communicate with the past.” They take inspiration from Native American art — Antonak is a Wolf Clan member of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York — and from the designs of more modern artists. But ​“each work commemorates the life of one or more of the artist’s passed ancestors on her matriarchal line.”

The statement goes on to say that ​“Antonak began this work with her deceased grandmother and mother, and two vibrant young sons in mind, as a way to come to a personal understanding of her relationship to the Seven Generations Principle, an ancient Iroquois philosophy, which believes that the decisions we make today will impact our family and natural surroundings seven generations into the future. Mapping this principle onto her own family tree, she realized with humbling awe, that she is connected to 252 grandparents, who ostensibly made life decisions with her happiness and security in mind.”

For Antonak, the pieces in ​“Seven Spans” are mandalas, not intended ​“for ceremonial use,” but with ​“the idea that they might serve as portals into past worlds, where she can receive direction, advice and prayers from her long-passed family members.”

This explanation conveys profound meaning to the gallery where Antonak’s works are displayed, one that celebrates the culture she’s a part of while also transcending it, making it utterly relatably. So many of us celebrate our own deep familial and cultural ties, in our food and our music, in the way we talk and dress.

But to the work’s credit, you don’t necessarily need to know any of the artist’s motives behind creating her work to feel its effect (as this reporter did not when he first entered the gallery). The shapes and colors of the assorted pieces are delightful, playful and inviting, celebratory to the point where they’re almost festive. The polka dots running along the walls and windows of the gallery add to the sense that this is a place in which you are invited to smile. The sounds emanating through the room — ambient, synthesized textures composed by the artist’s husband, Brian Antonak — slow the heart rate and encourage contemplation. The artist has even changed the air in the room by subtly anointing it with orange essence oil.

It’s peaceful, but it’s a mindful peacefulness. You enter, you linger; you might just emerge feeling rejuvenated, a little stronger.

It’s no wonder that Antonak’s work finds artistic kinship with the work of New Haven-based photographer Kim Weston, a photographer of African American and Mohawk descent who takes pictures of intertribal powwows. In a separate gallery, Antonak’s and Weston’s pieces are displayed together, and quite seamlessly.

Both Antonak’s masks and Weston’s photographs — displayed on translucent screens to softening effect — convey a strong sense of cultural pride. They continue the theme of connecting with one’s past and finding solace in it that the previous gallery starts. But the second room perhaps takes it a step further, inviting the viewer to translate that solace into action. Artistic action? Political action? Community action? The art doesn’t explicitly say. Only we know.

“Seven Spans” and ​“Space Rendered” run through June 29 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., with an artist’s talk by Antonak on May 30 from 6 to 8 p.m. Visit Artspace’s website for hours and more information.